


Introduction to Prolonged Human Contact

by orphan_account



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Some angst, abed doesn't understand hugging but he learns, author literally ruined their sleep schedule trying to write this during a pandemic, brief but canonical annie/abed kiss, hints that annie isn't straight, i spent 3 months writing this you better appreciate it, jeff is a softie, troy is the cutest, v v soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:26:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25273132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Abed Nadir doesn't understand hugging. He doesn't get what it means or why people do it. That is, until he meets Troy Barnes.(or 5 times Troy and Abed hugged as friends + 1 time it meant more than that)
Relationships: Abed Nadir & Britta Perry, Abed Nadir & Jeff Winger, Annie Edison & Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 56
Kudos: 331





	Introduction to Prolonged Human Contact

**Before.**

Abed Nadir never really understood why people hugged each other. He didn’t understand why the people on tv hugged when they were happy or sad or excited. He didn’t understand why the mothers on the playground in the park hugged their sons and daughters when they fell down and bruised their knees. He definitely didn’t understand why his Auntie Layla hugged his father on the couch in their living room an hour after his mom walked out of the door, suitcases in hand. 

She kissed him on the forehead before she left. Abed could still feel the spot where her lips touched tingling as he peeked around the living room doorway to watch his dad cry. 

His dad never cried.

Abed didn’t understand emotions. He thought that when someone cried that they were sad. And when someone smiled they were happy. Except sometimes people cried when they were happy, and sometimes people smiled even though they were sad. This is where Abed got confused. He couldn’t figure out what people were really feeling. Were they smiling because something good had happened? Or were they lying and smiling to protect someone else’s feelings? 

People’s emotions were often contradictory to their facial expressions and this was something Abed found hard to comprehend. 

He tried smiling once when his cousin showed him a spider he caught, his cousin just looked concerned. He even tried making himself cry once. He stood in front of the bathroom mirror for half an hour making strange faces and holding his eyes open to make them water, yet he didn’t cry. He couldn’t. Abed often wondered why he didn’t work the same way as everyone else.

His dad likened him to a robot. His mom said there was something wrong with him. They got him tested. They found nothing.

But things changed when Abed met Troy Barnes. 

He remembered the first time he saw Troy. Abed was sitting at the front of Senor Chang’s Spanish 101 class, at Greendale Community College, when he walked in wearing a purple and grey letterman jacket and a chunky silver watch on his right wrist. He swaggered towards a desk at the back of the room and dropped into a seat. Chang started his lesson and that was the last Abed thought of him that day.

The next time Abed encountered Troy was in the library. He saw Troy hunched over a Spanish textbook, head in his hands, trying his best (and failing terribly) to pronounce the vocab words Chang had told them to memorise for the quiz on Monday. 

Abed remembered the pretty blonde girl, Britta, telling him about the study group that Abed’s first college friend, Jeff Winger, was putting together. He thought that maybe Troy would benefit from joining the group. So, he walked over and tapped him on the shoulder.

Troy jumped and spun around to face him. “Woah!” He took a breath. “What’s up, man?”

“Having trouble with Spanish?” Abed replied, cocking his head to one side.

“Maybe. What’s it to you?”

“Jeff Winger and Britta Perry are starting a study group.”

Troy made a weird face. “Okay… first of all I have no idea who either of those people are. And second, why are you telling me this? I don’t even know you.”

“They’re in our Spanish class. And I figured you’d benefit from a Spanish study group, seeing as you’re finding the class hard. Also, I’m Abed, by the way. Abed Nadir.” He held his hand out to shake.

Troy smiled at him. Abed understood this time, he had made Troy happy. Troy slapped his hand and shook it. “Well, thanks, Abed Nadir. When does this study group meet?”

And the rest, as they say, was History.

**1.**

A month into his first semester at Greendale Community College, in what Abed was calling Season 1, Episode 4, Annie Edison asks him to take part in an experiment for her psych class. At first, he’s hesitant, they’re showing all four Indiana Joneses at the Vista and he’s really looking forward to the first three. He even bought a whip! But he agrees when Annie says that they’re really good friends. He didn’t even know Annie considered them friends. Maybe the Chandler and Phoebe dynamic doesn’t fit them after all. 

And so, at 9pm that night, he finds himself sat next to Troy in a classroom empty save for a circle of chairs and the people sitting in them. Annie comes in five minutes later and tells them they’re running late; Chang leaves the room with a scream and a thrown chair.

Troy and Abed sit in silence next to each other for the next two hours watching as their peers lose it, yelling and crying and leaving, and as Annie comes in every so often with another “We’re just gonna be another five minutes.” Eventually the two of them are the only ones left. Abed wonders how they’ll effectively manage to complete an experiment with only two subjects.

And still they sit there. Sad that he’s missing it, Abed starts playing Indiana Jones, from memory, in his head. He catches himself staring at Troy out of the corner of his eye more than once. He doesn’t know why. He’s just drawn to him for some reason.

Three hours in and Troy starts rocking backwards and forwards in his seat. Abed watches as he breaks. He stands up and yells towards the door. “Annie! What is going on in there! Why-what is taking so long?! I wasted all day! Here for you!” He starts to cry. “The Soul Train Awards were tonight!” 

Abed watches as Troy, sobbing, drags himself from the room. But he stays. Annie said they were friends, if he leaves now maybe she’ll take it back. 

And so Abed sits there for another twenty-three hours, until Annie stumbles into the room, hair tied up and messy, with bags under her eyes, and yells at him to go home. She slams the door behind her when she leaves. As Abed departs, he wonders if she was angry or if that was just part of the experiment. 

He wanders back to his dorm room, stopping by the vending machine to buy himself a bag of Let’s Potato Chips. 

He’s walking down the hall to his room, chips in hand, when he sees a figure curled up in a ball outside of his room. Upon closer inspection he realises its Troy, his hoodie scrunched up and strategically placed behind his head so he isn’t leaning against the wall. 

“Troy?” Troy’s eyes snap open and he bolts to his feet as he notices Abed standing above him.

“Abed! Hey!” He smiles.

Abed points to his door. “This is my dorm.”

Troy shuffles his feet. “Yeah, I know.”

“Okay.” Abed unlocks his door, dropping his chips and his satchel on the bed when he walks in. Troy follows him through the door. He turns around and watches Troy take in his room. There’s a strange expression on his face. He wonders if it’s a good time to ask- “Are you alright?” The words are out of his mouth before he even finishes the thought. Troy looks at him, shocked perhaps. 

“I-no. Annie’s experiment really messed with my head, you know? Like I was expecting something, anything, else! They didn’t even get us to do anything! And it's just screwing with me! What did they want!” Troy starts sobbing, he rushes forwards and wraps his arms around Abed’s middle. 

Abed is frozen, he doesn’t know what to do and he can feel a wet spot forming on his t-shirt where Troy is resting his face. He stands there, arms by his sides, staring at the top of Troy’s head as he shakes. Troy pulls back, looking up at Abed. His eyes are still teary. He sniffs. “Sorry, is this okay?” 

Carefully, Abed wraps his arms around Troy’s back. Troy starts sobbing even harder, resting his head back on Abed’s chest, and squeezing him tight. He gently runs his hand up and down Troy’s spine, remembering those scenes in movies where people did this to comfort their friends. 

Abed is starting to think Troy is softer than he lets on.

Abed never understood people’s need for hugs, but it does feel nice standing there, in the middle of his dorm room, with Troy enclosed in his arms.

**2.**

The last thing Abed remembers is Troy calling him a nerd and walking away in that stupid toilet paper vampire costume, so when he wakes up, delirious, with his head on Troy’s shoulder he thinks it's fair to say he's a little disoriented. They’re on the floor in the hallway outside the study room, propped up against the wall. There’s a dull throbbing in Abed’s head and a much sharper pain in his neck. Troy’s hand is clasped around his wrist. His skin tingles where Troy’s is touching. 

It takes a few moments for him to realise that the corridors are full with police officers and medics tending to his classmates. They’ve seen better days, that’s for sure. 

“Zombies!” Troy yells as he startles awake. His eyes dart around the room. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. Something bad, I think.” Abed gets to his feet, offering Troy his hand and pulling him up when he takes it. “Let’s go see if we can find the others.” 

They walk into study room F to find Pierce on a stretcher, oxygen mask covering his face, Shirley talking to an officer, and Jeff and Britta sitting on a desk in near silence. Before either of them can utter a word to the rest of the group, they’re ushered towards a stretcher and sat side by side as a nurse bandages up what Abed is sure are bite marks littering his upper body. 

“So… what do you think happened?” Troy asked after they’d been sitting there for a while. 

“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything. That’s not bad right?” 

“No, I’m sure we’ll all remember tomorrow. If Britta’s right and it was just a mass roofie, then it can’t last that long, I’m sure.” 

They go quiet again. Abed tries to conjure up any semblance of what had happened in the last few hours, any shred of a memory. It’s pointless, he gets nothing.

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Troy looks at him. He hesitates before he asks, “Wanna watch a movie?” That definitely wasn’t what Abed was expecting.

Yet still, he replies. “Sure. Alien’s, cyborgs or zombies?” He figures suggesting their usual favourite genres, although they feel wrong for a night like this, will lessen the uncomfortable tension that has arisen between them, Abed can visualise it sinking into his bones like lava. He wonders if it's just them that can feel it, or if it's affecting everyone else. He wonders if it's a side effect of the roofie.

“I don’t know why but I’m kind of over zombies.” Troy stood up slowly starting to shuffle towards the door. Abed followed.

“Yeah, I don’t feel like anything action-heavy.” He paused for a moment, thinking. How about something light?” 

“You seen _Marmaduke_?”

“ _Marmaduke_? Yeah I’ve seen it.”

“Would you mind rewatching it?” 

“I wouldn’t mind one bit.” Troy smiles at him, a beaming grin that makes Abed’s stomach feel all fluttery. Huh. That’s never happened before. Abed gives him a small smile in return. They keep walking.

They spend most of the walk in silence, both trying to process the fact that the entire night has vanished from their memories. Troy bumps his shoulder against Abed’s, Abed smiles at him. He’s getting better at that, smiling. 

When they walk through the door of Abed’s dorm room, Troy heads straight towards the DVD shelf to hunt for _Marmaduke_ , while Abed walks to the couch and sits down, he’s used to Troy taking charge on movie nights by now. 

Troy leaps onto the couch with way too much energy for someone who’s just had the night they’ve had. He throws his feet up onto Abed’s lap and leans back against the arm rest at the other end of the couch. It’s a position they’ve been in many times before, so it’s familiar, but something about tonight makes it feel different somehow. 

Abed watches Troy press play on the tv remote before throwing it onto the floor and focusing on the opening credits. Abed can’t seem to draw his eyes away from the side of Troy’s face just yet, he wonders how he’s comfortable in such a strange position. He wonders about what he’s forgotten. 

They watch _Marmaduke_ in silence for about twenty minutes before Troy starts shifting in his seat. He sits up, taking his feet from Abed’s lap and bringing them up to his chest. He’s biting his nails, and staring at a dark spot on the couch, unblinking. (Abed had spilled blue Kool Aid there about a week ago, it turns out red Kool Aid doesn’t cancel it out like he’d thought.) Abed may not be good with emotions, but he knows Troy well enough to know that something’s wrong. 

“Troy? Are you-”

“What if it’s a bad thing we can’t remember? What if… what if we forgot something that we really needed to remember?” He takes a shuddering breath. “I can’t help but get this feeling that I’ve forgotten something that might be important. I don’t know what it is but it’s like I can feel it in my chest.” He clutches at his t-shirt, dirty from what might be blood or possibly spilled punch, over his heart. His breath quickens, Abed can see his hands start to shake. “Abed… something feels wrong. I can feel something missing, and it feels bigger than what happened tonight and I... I-”

“Troy.” Abed grabs his hand. Troy’s eyes snap to meet his, before quickly flicking down to where Abed’s hand lies on top of his. It’s a form of affection Abed isn’t used to, but he knows that when Troy gets like this physical contact is one of the few things that can bring him back from the brink of panic. “I’m sure we didn’t forget anything that big. And if we did, I bet we’ll remember it later on to further the plot.” 

Troy gives him a shaky smile. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re right.” But he still looked rattled, so Abed tugged on his hand and pulled Troy down onto the couch, resting his head on his lap. Troy looked surprised. “Is this alright?”

Abed remembered the scene in Spider-Man 3, where Harry had rested his head on Mary Jane’s lap so she could comfort him as he died. He knows Troy isn’t dying, but he figures it would comfort him all the same. That’s where Troy and Abed differed, when Troy was sad he thrived on human touch, but when Abed felt overwhelmed, human touch made him feel as if he were about to explode. “Yeah, it’s cool. Cool, cool, cool.”

Abed lets Troy tug the hand he’s holding onto his chest and he interlocks their fingers. Abed puts his free hand on Troy’s head and starts gently running his fingers across Troy’s scalp. Troy sighs. _Marmaduke_ plays on quietly in the background.

Abed knew exactly how Troy was feeling. He feels as if something is missing but he can’t seem to figure out what. No matter how hard he tries to recall the events of the night, he keeps coming up with nothing. It’s like his head is full of white noise and static. 

The one thing that his brain manages to come up with is Leia’s iconic love confession to Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back, but Abed can’t figure out how that’s significant at all. It plays on a loop in his mind. Maybe he’s due a Star Wars rewatch. 

Before long the credits are rolling, and Troy has fallen asleep on his lap. As Abed drifts off, he can’t help but wonder why Leia and Han’s words seem to make his chest feel all funny.

 **3.**

It all started with the hot librarian. Abed was sitting in the study room fiddling with the settings on his camera, Troy in his usual seat next to him, when the soulful notes of George Michael’s _Careless Whisper_ began to play through the library. He looked up, confused to find Troy staring towards the front desk, an expression Abed had come to know as ‘lovestruck’ plastered on his face. Abed flicked his eyes over to the desk, behind which he saw a red-haired woman, wearing thick-rimmed black glasses, flipping through a Charles Dickens book. 

An uncomfortable weight settled itself heavy in his gut as he glanced back at Troy, and then at the librarian once more. Troy was looking at her as if she’d hung the stars in the sky. Abed swallowed, a lump forming itself in his throat. It was a strange feeling, tense and awkward, he couldn’t yet tell if it was good or bad.

He had asked Troy, “Why are you looking at the librarian like that?” 

And he had replied, in an almost sing-songy voice, “Isn’t she perfect?” Then the realisation hit him. The restless feeling he felt all over wasn’t something bad. It was just new. Something he hadn’t felt before.

A crush.

“Yeah. She is.” Abed had replied, turning back to look at the librarian. He smiled as she turned the page of her book. It felt wrong on his face. Like it shouldn’t be there. 

_Careless Whisper_ was still playing on in the background, but the moment was broken when Jeff walked in, throwing his textbook onto the table and yelling, “Shut up, Leonard. No one wants to listen to you ruin George Michael’s greatest hits.”

That had been a week ago. Now, Abed is sitting on the closed toilet lid in Troy’s bathroom at Pierce’s house, as Troy brushes his teeth for the fourth time of the night. (“I just want Mariah to think my breath smells fresh Abed!”) 

They’d spent the past 6 days watching Mariah from afar, occasionally yelling “Books!” in an attempt to get her to shush them and subsequently pretending to be asleep as soon as she looked over at them. And then yesterday, after some terrible relationship advice from Jeff and a group wide fight with him about the Bare-naked Ladies, (“You know what? Maybe we all need some space to pull the knife out of the back of the most celebrated Canadian alt-rock band of the mid 90s you selfish, jaded ass!” “This is a fight. We are fighting.”) Troy and Abed plucked up the courage to ask Mariah to the Valentines dance, briefcase full of tacos in hand. (After she’d said yes, they ran to the cafeteria to eat them. Troy dubbed them victory tacos. Abed laughed, he felt warm all over.)

Troy moves onto fixing his hair as Abed starts to contemplate the situation they’re in. He knows what Troy sees in Mariah, (“She has such nice hair Abed, it looks so soft! And her smile is so pretty!” He pauses “Also, you know, boobs.”) he’d been going on about it all week. Abed isn’t so sure about what he sees in her anymore. Sure, she has nice hair, like Troy said, and she’s tall, and smart, and Abed appreciated the way she matched her outfits to her glasses. But Abed was perfectly happy being single, he had his friends and his films and that's all he really needed.

But, then again, what the hell, he might as well go on the date anyway. In one timeline, Mariah will pick Troy and they’ll have a good night, Abed thinks he’d be okay with that. In another timeline, Mariah picks him, and Troy wouldn’t have a good night. He’s not so sure how he feels about that. 

He’s broken out of his thoughts when Troy turns around and smiles nervously at him. “How do you look?” Beautiful is the first word that comes to Abed’s mind. He’s not sure why.

“You look great. She’s gonna love it.”

“You think?” 

“Of course.” Abed says, standing up. They do their signature handshake and leave for the dance.

“And that, is my analysis of the _Saw_ movie franchise.” Abed is saying three and a half hours later, stood next to Troy and across the table from Mariah. “That about does it. So, I think it’s time for you to choose.” Troy and Abed pull their most attractive poses as she takes a moment to consider. 

“Abed, could you get us some punch?” 

“On it.” Abed rushes off. He’s glad to get away for a moment. He may not have let it show but it was getting overwhelming standing there. Mariah’s perfume was tickles-your-nose-from-a-metre-away strong and the cafeteria was loud. It was all getting a bit too much, and Abed wanted to do nothing more than to reach out and grab the soft material of Troy’s sweater to ground himself. He figured that would be weird, though, so he settled for picking at the tablecloth and ranting about _Saw_.

Plus, he figures he knows what’s coming next and he’s okay with it. He knows that Mariah is going to tell Troy she’s gonna choose him. Abed knew from the moment they arrived at the dance that Mariah had already made her mind up. And it’s okay, Abed never gets picked by girls, he’s too weird. They always think he’s adorable, but eventually his personality deters them. 

In another timeline, if they exist, Mariah chooses him. And at this very moment is letting Troy down easy, only sending Abed away so he didn’t have to watch. And in that time Abed would return in time to see Troy flip out. He isn’t happy Abed was chosen over him. It snaps something inside of him. Maybe he’d fight Abed, full of rage and a hatred that real Troy would never feel. 

But that isn’t this timeline.

So Abed walks over to the punch table and picks up two plastic cups. He knows there's no point in getting three. He fills them both with the bright red drink from the large bowl decorated in pink paper hearts. Paper and liquid, not the best match. 

He takes a deep breath, before turning around and making his way back through the crowd. He slides the last metre to the table with a ‘pew’ and says, “Punch.” 

“Hey, Abed.” Troy sounds weird.

“Hey.” 

“I, um- She just, um-” Troy stumbles over his words and looks to Abed, as if he’s shocked. Abed struggles to understand why he would feel that way. Isn’t it clear to him that he’s the obvious and better choice? People would always choose Troy over Abed, that’s just something he’d come to live with. “She chose me.”

“Cool. You can have this then.” He hands Troy the punch, he didn’t want it anyway. “Thank you, Mariah. Have a great night.” It hurts a little more than he thought it would, especially hearing it out loud. Then again, rejection always hurts, whether expected or not. 

He walks away and it's like a weight has finally been lifted off his chest. Except, it's back a couple of seconds later when he remembers Troy is still over there. 

Abed spends the next half an hour watching from the sidelines as Troy and Mariah dance and talk. They smile a lot, but Abed can’t help but think that Troy’s doesn’t meet his eyes. Somehow, watching them dance upsets him more than the rejection. He makes the decision to go back to his dorm after realising that standing there staring isn’t accomplishing anything. 

He’s walking over to them when he hears Troy say, “What was wrong with Abed?” He slows down, he doesn’t know if he wants to hear Mariah’s reply, but he stays nonetheless. After all, he is in the perfect radius to hear what’s being said without being seen so he might as well take advantage of that.

“Well, I mean, he did talk about the _Saw_ movies for two hours.” Fair, Abed can understand that _Saw_ isn’t everyone’s thing.

Troy jumps in to defend him. “Yeah, but there are eight of them and they’re two hours apiece. And the first one did redefine the genre and-”

Mariah cuts him off. “Troy, I would love to be his friend.”

“I know you would, it’s incredible.” Abed smiles at that.

“But romantically, he’s…” She trails off, Troy gives her a questioning look. “You know. He’s weird. It’s like he doesn’t properly understand people, let alone women. He doesn’t get social cues or understand emotions. How am I supposed to date someone like that? But you? You’re much more in touch with all of those things. You’re easier to talk to.” 

Abed doesn’t want to hear what Troy has to say to that so he turns on his heel and rushes from the cafeteria. People have said that something’s wrong with him before, people have called him weird, but no one’s ever laid out his character flaws quite so bluntly.

He makes it as far as the corridor outside the canteen doors before realising he promised he wouldn’t leave without Troy. He decides to just wait here until Troy is done.

He doesn’t have to wait long because about two minutes later, as Abed is fiddling with the posters on the notice board, Troy comes storming through the doors. “I hate her, I hate her, I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.”

“What happened?” Abed asks, feigning curiosity. He figures he’ll tell Troy that he heard later, once he’s got the rage out of his system.

Troy turns around and looks him in the eye. “She called you weird.”

“I am weird.” It hurts saying that out loud. He internalises it and looks back to Troy.

“Not as weird as her.” They look towards the closed doors, as if they were able to see her. “Who the hell is Nicholas Nickleby? She wouldn’t shut up about it.” 

“Hm. I know.” Abed sighs. He thinks Mariah’s a hypocrite. She didn’t like him because he talked for too long about one thing, and yet she did the same thing. Call that a double standard. 

Troy rests his hand on Abed’s shoulder and looks deep into his eyes. It feels like Troy is breaking him open from the inside. “There’s someone out there for us.”

Abed is unsure what to say to that. (What does Troy mean by us?) But before he can blurt out one of the thoughts he doesn’t fully understand yet, he says, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Troy gazes at him, all soft and sincere. For once Abed understands what his face is showing. Maybe he gets it now. Or maybe he just gets Troy more than everyone else. “It is now.” Troy pulls him forward into his arms and wraps him up in a hug. Abed feels warm. 

He pats Troy once on the back and then lets his arms fall down. Hugs still aren’t his strong point. Mariah rushes past them, sheepish and ashamed. Troy remains clutching on to him. “Ignore her.” 

So, they stand there, Troy’s head resting on Abed’s shoulder, his hair tickling at Abed’s neck, for nearly ten minutes until they hear, what sounds like Britta, yelling coming from the cafeteria. They part and Troy looks up at Abed with a soft smile that's all of a sudden impossible to decipher. “The night’s not over yet, you wanna go dance?” 

Abed considers him for a moment. “Sure.” 

Troy breaks into a wide grin and he offers Abed his arm. “May I offer you this dance, good Sir?” He says in a terrible posh British accent.

“You may.” Abed replies in a similar, slightly better, accent. He hooks his arm through Troy’s and they march into the cafeteria, stopping only when they reach the middle of the dancefloor. They bust out in their best dance moves, Troy’s a reprisal of the ones he showed Mariah earlier, to a playlist of over the top love songs that all sound the same. It isn’t so overwhelming anymore, Abed realises. 

Eventually the party dies down until the dance floor consists only of a drunken Leonard swaying back and forth, Star-Burns getting high in the corner and Troy and Abed still dancing as if their lives depend on it. 

When Abed notices Shirley, Annie and Britta sitting on a couch surrounded by decorative trees he tugs Troy over to them. He sits down next to Annie and pulls Troy down next to Shirley.

He’s sitting there, pressed against Troy on one side and with Annie’s head on his other shoulder, when they all get a text from Jeff. It’s nice, a typical Winger apology. Abed thinks they’re good for Jeff. He started off out of place, the reluctant leader, but as time has gone by Abed thinks the group has softened him. 

Twenty minutes later sees Troy and Abed sleepily walking out of the cafeteria leaning against one another for support. Troy’s arm sits comfortably around Abed’s waist as Abed rests his over Troy’s shoulders, they stumble like that through the car park towards the car Pierce let Troy borrow. Troy untangles himself from Abed and leans against it when they reach it.

“You know, earlier when you went to get punch?” Troy won’t meet Abed’s eyes. Instead, he’s staring at the keys he’s fiddling with. “Mariah said we were cute together.” 

“I can see why she’d say that. I am pretty adorable.” He smirks. Troy looks up at him and smiles, letting out a breath.

“Yeah. Yeah you are.” He looks down again. “Just so you know, there’s nothing wrong with you.” 

“I know.” Abed’s voice is quiet, he wasn’t expecting this.

Troy keeps going. “Because being weird isn’t a bad thing. Some people just don’t understand because we’re different to them and they’re different to us. And different people don’t always get each other.”

“Troy, what are you trying to say?”

He sighs. “I’m trying to say I get you! Okay? I understand your weirdness. I’m the same in a lot of ways, I’m just still getting used to being open and proud about it. But I get you, and I know that what Mariah said earlier hurt your feelings.”

“I only know what you told me.”

“Abed! I saw you run out. I know you heard what she said.”

“Oh…” Abed looks away. Troy’s probably mad at him for eavesdropping.

“Yeah, oh.” Troy tries to catch his eye, it doesn’t work. “I’m not mad at you for eavesdropping, by the way, so you can stop thinking that.” Abed looks him in the eye then. Troy smiles at him, he smiles back. “Look, man, I love your weirdness. Your weird is the perfect balance to my weird. We fit. Two weird people just being weird.” He shakes his head. “You get the point, just, it’s one girl, so don’t feel so bad.”

Abed just nods, too stunned to do anything else. And then Troy’s hugging him, strong arms wrapped around the back of Abed’s shoulders. He stands still for a moment, unsure of what to do. Then Troy says, voice muffled from where his head is tucked into Abed’s neck, “You can hug me back, you know.”

So Abed does. He wraps his arms around Troy and gently squeezes, tucking his own head into Troy’s neck. It’s the most comforted he’s ever felt. Abed wonders why he couldn’t have met Troy sooner. How is he so lucky to deserve this perfect person? This person who understands Abed more than anyone in his life ever has and, despite knowing him so well, keeps him around. Abed thinks Troy is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

A few moments later, Troy is pulling away and opening the car door. He gives Abed a small smile. “I’ll see you on Monday.” 

“Yeah, Monday.” Troy gets in the car. 

As Abed watches the headlights of Troy’s car disappear into the dark, he can’t help but think that something had changed tonight. 

**4.**

“Alright, Shirley, you have the most important job, okay?” Troy says, slightly out of breath from running from the City College paintball army.

“Yeah, yeah, pull the fire alarm.” She replies. “Can we move this along? I’m missing CSI.”

“Enemy soldiers are incoming. I need everyone to evacuate through the air ve- Garrett!” 

“I may be stuck in this vent.” Garrett yells from inside the vent. “It is too early to tell.” Annie moves to try and pull him out. It's fruitless, he’s stuck fast. 

“Dammit!” Troy turns to him. “Abed, sorry, Han, what’re we gonna do? We need to think of something fast, I promised Jeff this plan would work.” 

“I think our only choice is to try and shoot our way out.” Abed drawls, Han Solo impression keeping him much calmer than he usually would be. 

Troy catches his eye and takes a breath. “Right.” He pauses, eyes not wavering from where they stare into Abed’s. “Commence Operation: Troy’s Awesome Leadership is Never in Doubt.” He pulls out his guns. The group share a couple nods of confirmation before steadily moving to leave. Troy unlocks the door but before he opens it, he turns back to Abed for reassurance. They lift their guns and do their handshake. Troy smiles and Abed nods in return. _Cool._ Abed thinks. _Cool, cool, cool._

Troy kicks the door open behind him and off they go, shooting enemy soldiers down one by one, leaving Garrett in the vent and Shirley by the fire alarm.

They run as fast as they can down the hallway, shooting at enemy soldiers as they go and managing to dodge the few paintballs fired their way. They don’t get far before the shots become more rapid. Abed turns back to look quickly noticing that the soldiers have switched out their handguns for paintball specific shotguns. A paintball nearly hits Troy, but before it can Abed pulls him towards his chest and takes aim. He hits the soldier square in the chest. 

“Thanks,” Troy stutters, looking up at him through his eyelashes. 

Abed smirks at him and opens his mouth to reply, but before he can, Annie yells, “Uh, guys? Not the time.” They quickly jump apart, returning to firing at the enemy. 

“I think we have to take cover! They’re too fast.” Abed takes a quick glance around, noticing a small alcove made out of several overturned tables. “In there!” He shouts. He waits for Annie and Troy to take cover, still shooting at the enemy, before ducking behind the tables himself. 

They sit there, listening and keeping low as the enemy’s shots turn sporadic. 

“We’ve got three Human Beings trapped outside of the library.” Abed hears one of the enemy soldiers say. He thinks it’s funny that their voices are distorted like robots, they fall into the stormtrooper roles so well.

“Keep them pinned down.” He hears the other one reply.

“It won’t be long now.” The first one says, firing off a shot that hits somewhere above Annie’s head. 

A few moments later and Britta’s voice is buzzing through the communication devices in their ears. “Guys, we’re dying out here” 

“Well, we’re dying too! They’ve trapped us in a dead end.” Troy yells in reply, ducking down further although he’s the most secure of them all. 

“Hey, kid. Someone’s gotta make it out of here alive.” Troy contemplates for a moment. Abed can tell he doesn’t want to leave them trapped here, but Abed knows that he knows he’s the one with the best chance of survival. He doesn’t move until Annie lifts up her guns and nods to him. She’s ready to fight. 

Troy reluctantly gets up and leaps over the table blockading them in, He shoots towards the enemy soldiers holding them down as he runs at them. Abed and Annie move to help him. 

“We’re taking fire. We’re falling back. Falling back. Fall back to placement positions. We’re gonna need help.” Abed hears one soldier yell frantically, as they duck back behind an overturned desk, before running down the corridor in the opposite direction to Troy.

Abed watches as Troy only gets so far before stumbling to a halt. Abed can just make out Troy’s declaration of, “I had a dream it would end this way.” before he hears the sounds of rapid-fire paintballs hitting skin. Troy’s out. 

Abed sighs. This game is tougher than he expected it would be. “Shirley, nobody’s making it out of the library. Pull the alarm.” He orders Shirley over the comms system. Their best bet now is that hopefully someone on the outside still has a shot at winning. 

“Britta? Are you alive?” Abed hears Shirley ask to no avail over the comms. “Britta? Britta?” No reply. And then Shirley goes quiet, Abed can only hope she survives long enough for them to win. 

Annie and Abed keep firing at the soldiers across the hall from them. Firing and ducking and firing and ducking. Then Abed’s gun clicks. He pulls the trigger a couple more times but it’s no use. It’s empty. “I’m out.”

“Me too.” Annie says, dejected. 

“Alpha 17, move in.” They hear the soldiers moving steadily towards them. 

“Looks like this is it.” She pauses, looking up at him. “Will you still be Han Solo after we die?”

“Afraid not, doll. Once I’m gone, I’m gone.”

“Oh. Okay” Abed can tell Annie is saddened by this. He knew she had some kind of strange attraction to him in character that wasn’t there when he was being himself. The same thing happened last year with his Don Draper impression. 

The strange thing about Abed pretending to be other people is that the characters he portrays often understand emotions much easier than he does. This means Abed is forced to understand and interpret other people’s emotions in a normal way, lest his portrayal be inadequate. 

So, before she can get too upset, Abed winds his arm around her waist and pulls her in for a searing kiss. Annie wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him in closer. Abed is glad he’s only playing a part, because Annie definitely isn’t the person he wishes he were kissing right now. 

As the soldiers’ footsteps get ever closer, the fire alarm sounds and bright orange paint starts to rain down around them, covering their hair and clothes and coating the windows like curtains. Troy’s plan worked. Abed can feel it running down his back underneath his shirt. It's cold and wet and overall, not something he’s enjoying. Kissing Annie keeps him distracted, but he knows he’ll have to pull away and break character any moment now. This has already gone on long enough.

The alarm stops ringing a moment later and Abed pulls away from Annie. “Cool.” He walks away, leaving her breathless and stunned.

Abed walks towards the sound of joyous cheers coming from elsewhere in the library. He turns a corner to see Troy kneeling on the floor laughing and covered head to toe in orange paint. “Troy?”

Troy’s eyes widen as he looks up at Abed, his smile somehow growing even wider. “Abed!” He leaps up, grabbing at Abed’s shoulders as he bounces up and down. “My plan worked!” 

Abed smiles. “I knew it would work. I’m proud of you.” 

Troy stops bouncing, and the look in his eye changes. It’s almost warmer now, if Abed is reading him right. His smile gets smaller but doesn’t darken any, it’s sincere, almost secretive. “Thanks, man.” 

Just then Annie runs up to them and Troy’s hands fall from Abed’s shoulders. “I just got word from Jeff that Britta and Leonard are the only ones left. Everyone’s meeting in the Quad to watch the game end. I hope she wins.” She rushes towards the library exit without a glance back. Troy and Abed take off after her. 

They get outside in time to see Leonard get shot twice in the chest, before walking off the final playing field. Now, Britta’s the only one left. Abed can see her taking in the crowd that's forming to watch. Whether they win or lose, they’re doing it together. 

But Britta just stares at them, colour drained from her face. Abed is worried they’re going to lose just because she won’t move, and then Shirley surprises them by swerving in on a golf cart littered with paintball splatters. Yet Shirley is clean. She’s still in the game. 

From where he’s standing with the crowd, Abed can’t hear what Britta says to Shirley, or what she says in return, but he sees Britta climb into the cart next to her and his faith is restored. The cart speeds off towards the remaining crowd of City College goons.

“Go, go, go.” The Dean yells, leading everyone in a charge to get closer to the action. 

The crowd watches in awe as the two women hit every enemy soldier, including the one manning the paintball machine gun. Everything goes still for a moment. Everyone is quiet, like they’re not sure how to react. But then Shirley steps out of the car yelling, “We win!” and everyone’s cheering. 

That is, until, Shirley is shot in the back. 

The cheers stop immediately. They didn’t get everyone. There are now two City College soldiers high fiving and cheering for themselves. Abed feels Annie grab his arm in shock. They’ve lost.

A third enemy soldier runs in, joining in with the cheers. However, after a moment passes, he shoots the other two in the chest. Abed knows before he sees his face. Pierce. 

“What?” He hears Troy exclaim from beside him. 

“I win!” Pierce yells, removing his mask. The crowd gasps collectively, before applauding once more and rushing to where Pierce and Dean Spreck are stood by the Ice Cream van. “You owe me a hundred G’s.” He pauses. “And you can make the cheque out to Greendale.” 

Dean Pelton passes out. 

“No thanks. I’m done with you guys. I like this school, but I’m done with whatever you call this. Adios.” An hour later sees the study group sat in an awkward yet solemn silence moments after Pierce had left the room. 

“He was my ride!” Troy pipes up. 

“I’m going after him!” Annie chimes in a second later.

“No, he’s just acting out. I’ve seen this behaviour before… in cats. My cats.”

“It’s true. And now, he’ll come slinking back in 5… 4…” The group smiles a little, he’ll be back any second. “3… 2…” Jeff raises his hands to signify one. Pierce doesn’t come back.

The group waits in silence, staring at the door. A ceiling tile falls down behind Troy. Still Pierce doesn’t return. 

They wait about five minutes before Shirley says she has to get home to her kids and leaves. That starts a chain reaction of excuses and everyone leaves. Abed is walking to the door, assuming Troy is behind him when he realises he can’t hear the other man’s footsteps. He turns around to find Troy still sitting in his seat at the table. “Troy? Are you coming?” 

“Pierce left, Abed, I don’t have any way to get home.” He looks sad. Abed thinks it looks wrong on his face. He walks back over.

“Do you want to come back to my dorm? You can shower off the paint and then stay over and watch movies. I’ll let you have the top bunk.” 

Troy looks up at him and smiles, it’s small but it’s there. “Okay, sounds good.” He stands up. Abed holds his hand out and puts his other to his chest. They do their handshake. 

They arrive at Abed’s dorm a little while later. “You can shower first.” Abed says walking through the door.

“I don’t have a change of clothes, could I borrow some?” Troy asks, unsure, as if he thinks Abed will say no.

“Sure.” He walks over to his chest of drawers and grabs out the softest pair of pyjamas he owns. He thinks Troy will like them. “Here.” He holds them out and Troy takes them.

“Thanks.” Troy smiles at him before walking to the bathroom. While Abed waits for Troy to return he changes into some pyjamas of his own, being careful not to let dried paint fall from his hair to the floor. Once changed, Abed looks through his DVD shelf for something to watch. He figures something light would be good. He takes out _13 Going on 30_. He puts the film in the player and pauses it once it loads up, so he can wait for Troy to get back.

Troy comes back a little while later, looking soft and clean in Abed’s pyjamas. “Hey.” He sits down on the couch and brings his knees to his chest. 

Abed walks to the bathroom and gets the quickest shower humanly possible, wanting to get back to Troy fast. He dresses and dries his hair with a towel before rushing back to his room. He finds Troy still on the sofa in the same position he’d left him in and sits next to him. He presses play on the movie.

They’re quiet the entire time, though Abed can sense that something is up with Troy. The credits are rolling when he starts to ask, “Are you ok-”

“What am I gonna do, Abed?” Troy exclaims. “I can’t live with Pierce anymore! He left the group! And it’s gonna be weird living with him when I know we’re not friends anymore. But my parents won’t let me get a place on my own, and I don’t want to move back in with them. I don’t know what to do.”

“I do.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. We can rent a place together. I have to move out of my dorm before summer anyway, and my dad told me I should find a new place. We can be roommates.”

“But I thought you said you didn’t want to live with me. What about ‘jumping the shark’? And what about the giant cookie?”

“What cookie?”

“You said we would end up fighting and splitting the room in half with tape. You said that I should live with someone I like but not someone I like enough that it could ruin our relationship. Too much of a good thing is bad.”

“I think we’re past that now. I’m pretty sure nothing can come between us. And when I said that, I was still sure you were going to leave somehow. It wasn’t just about protecting our friendship; it was also about protecting myself from getting hurt.”

“Oh…” Troy looks down, not meeting Abed’s eye. “Abed I’m not gonna leave and I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“I know that now. So,” He raises his hand up. “Roommates?” 

Troy looks up, smiling, and slaps one hand against Abed’s and the other against his chest. “Roommates.” 

They go to bed a few moments later, Troy climbing into the top bunk and Abed settling in the bottom. He lies there staring at the underside of the top bunk, imagining their future apartment. He thinks they should designate a room to the fictional stories they like to act out, maybe they could even buy some more bunk beds.

Abed is snapped out of his thoughts when he notices Troy climbing back down the ladder. “Hey, can I sleep down here tonight? I feel bad about what you said earlier.”

“Sure.” Abed moves to get out of the bunk but before he gets far Troy stops him.

“No, I meant, can I sleep in the bunk with you. If that’s okay? I just kinda want to be close with you right now.” He looks at Abed with pleading eyes. 

Abed settles back and lifts the covers. Troy climbs in. He settles his head on Abed’s chest and his arm around his waist. “I love you, man. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” 

Abed smiles to himself in the dark. “I love you, too.” Abed think’s this is the warmest he’s ever felt. He thinks come tomorrow night he’ll miss the feeling of a person in his arms. He’s never felt this way before. 

He waits until he hears Troy’s breathing even out, his fist lightly clutching Abed’s shirt before whispering into the pitch-black room. “Cool. Cool, cool, cool.”

**5.**

“C’mon guys, let’s wrap this up.” Abed ignores him, continuing to hit Troy with a pillow. Troy hits back just as hard.

“I don’t wanna.” Abed blurts. He’s determined not to look away from where he’s fighting with Troy, if he does Troy might walk away. And if that happens, one of them has to move out of the apartment, and Abed has to deal with losing another person he loves. He can’t handle that. Especially if it’s Troy. 

“Me neither.” Troy mutters. Abed lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

This war has been going on for nearly three days. It’s unlike anything Abed has ever experienced, and he’s been in two high stake paintball battles. He thought it was going to be fun at first, making a pillow fort with Troy, but then Troy wanted to make a blanket fort just to beat that stupid record. Abed didn’t want to make a blanket fort. They’d already made one last year, and sequels never live up to the expectations of the original. But when he’d said that to Troy, he’d just gotten mad at him and left to make his own fort. Troy never got mad at Abed, so he figured it would pass and Troy would come back.

Except he didn’t. Instead, they were only reunited when their forts clashed in the study room. It escalated from there. It was blown into a full-on battle; pillow fights were had and mean emails were sent. And now they stood in the cafeteria, deserted by their armed forces, a man on man battle. 

“Why not?” Jeff says, frustrated.

“This is gonna be the last thing we ever do together.” Abed croaks, voice a little watery. He can feel his eyes starting to sting from where he’s holding back tears. He doesn’t cry often, but if he’s going to, he figures Troy is a good reason for it. 

“We can’t stop.” Troy says, eyes downcast and sad. 

Jeff looks between them. “Doesn’t that kind of solve your problem?” He pauses. “The realisation you like each other so much, you’d hit each other with pillows forever?” Abed stops hitting Troy with his pillow and Troy does the same. 

“Knowing that doesn’t feel like enough anymore.” Abed says. And it hurts. 

“Yeah. We’re grown-ups now. We have grown-up problems.” Troy states, trying to seem tough even though Abed can see right through it.

“That’s very clear.” They ignore him, slowly starting to whack each other with the pillows again. “Unless, you use those magical friendship hats that I got for you.”

“We’re not stupid, Jeffrey. We know you made those sarcastically.” Troy chides, sporadically throwing hits at Abed.

“Yes, yes. And I will roll my eyes at both of you when I put them on your heads, because that’s the way I am. But that’s not the way you have to be.”

Abed looks at Troy and Troy looks back at him. It’s times like this Abed wishes he and Troy could speak telepathically. Or at least that Abed could read minds, that would make everything so much easier.

They both pull off their battle helmets, Troy’s a blanket crown and Abed’s an ornate cushion. Troy looks down at his in his hands, refusing to make eye contact once more.

Abed keeps looking at Troy. “We might be interested.”

“Okay, then.” Jeff mimes putting the magical friendship hats on their heads. “Here’s your magical friendship hat, and…”

“Jeff.” Troy cuts him off. 

“What?”

“You left the magical friendship hats at the Dean’s office.” Abed explains. Troy smiles at him making a ‘duh’ face.

“Right. Of course. I’ll go get them.” Jeff leaves. The smiles slide from their faces as soon he’s out the door. 

Abed glances at Troy. He wants to say something, something that’ll fix things, but he isn’t sure what he could say that would make this better. The words don’t exist yet. 

Annie and Shirley are watching from the sidelines, Pierce stood uncomfortably beside them in his pillowman armour. Britta is wandering around snapping away at random things with the camera she doesn’t understand. 

They stand in an awkward silence, not looking at each other but not actively fighting. Silence isn’t normally awkward with Troy. Silence with Troy is usually comfortable, familiar.

Jeff comes jogging back in, hats in hand. He places them one on Abed’s head and one on Troy’s. “Here you go. Lucky no one grabbed them, huh?” 

Those hats really must be magic, because when the invisible fabric touches his skin, all the tension drains from his body and he smiles at Troy with ease. Troy smiles back. It’s the best thing he’s seen all day. 

They do their handshake, grins widening. Jeff is standing to the side of them, beaming. The moment sits for a second. It’s nice. 

The silence is broken when Annie shouts an excited “Woo!” and loops her arm through Shirleys. They start to walk towards the door, Jeff, Britta and pillowman-Pierce following closely behind. Abed moves to go with them but comes to a halt when a hand catches his wrist. He turns to see Troy staring at him with an almost urgent look in his eye. “What-”

“Are you guys coming?” Jeff cuts him off before he can finish. They glance over to the door where he’s waiting for them. Abed looks back at Troy.

“We’ll see you on Monday.” Jeff shrugs and walks off. Troy doesn’t catch Abed’s eye until he’s definitely gone, and when he is, Troy looks back at Abed for a split second before wrapping him in a hug.

It’s unlike the hugs they’ve shared before. Troy’s arms are tight around his shoulders, squeezing him and keeping him held tight. Troy’s head is hidden in the Abed’s neck. Abed carefully wraps his arms around Troy’s waist and grasps at the fabric covering his lower back, his orange pyjama shirt soft under Abed’s fingers. Abed can feel Troy’s breath tickling his neck and his hair brushing his cheek.

“I thought you were gonna leave me.” Abed hears Troy whisper. “I never thought it would scare me as much as it did because I was sure it would never happen,” He takes a shuddering breath. “But then it nearly did happen, and I was terrified.” Abed clutches him even tighter at that.

“I’m sorry.” Abed mutters out hesitantly. He knows on some level that this is his fault, he’s the one that made Troy feel sad, and he has to fix the mess he’s made. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I didn-” 

“Abed, hey.” Troy says softly, pulling away from him, his hands resting gently on the sides of Abed’s arms. “Let’s go home. We can talk there, okay?”

Abed nods. “Home. Yeah. That sounds good.”

Thirty minutes later Abed’s unlocking the door to an eerily empty apartment 303. “Where’s Annie? Shouldn’t she already be here?” Troy says, walking further into the apartment. He checks Annie’s room, the blanket fort and even the Dreamatorium just to see if she’s hiding from them. “She left before us.”

Just then, Abed’s phone chimes from the pocket of the pyjama pants he’s still wearing. A message from Annie sits at the top of his lockscreen. 

**Annie**  
_Staying at Britta’s tonight. Thought I’d give you and Troy some space. I’m glad you two are friends again._

“Huh.”

“What’s up?” He shows Troy the phone. “Huh.” 

They’re both quiet for a moment, the pause in conversation quickly becoming awkward. They stand opposite one another, Abed stiff and Troy shuffling his feet, both avoiding eye contact. All of a sudden, things are weird again. _Maybe this won’t be resolved as easily as I thought._ Abed thinks.

“So…” Troy says, drawing out the ‘O’. “We should probably talk, huh?”

“Yeah, probably.” Abed replies, shifting slightly to relieve the tension in his muscles.

Troy nods, finally catching Abed’s gaze. “Do you want to go to the blanket fort?” He asks, gesturing behind him. 

“No. It’s too enclosed a space, I’d rather be somewhere more open.” He pauses for a moment. “Plus, I’m kind of over forts right now.” Troy huffs a laugh in agreement.

“How about the Dreamatorium?”

“On any other day, I would say yes, but that’s a place for fiction and for pretending. We have to be real people right now. Real people in the real world. We’re trying to fix something, and I don’t want to do that while playing pretend, because then it would feel like it never really happened.”

Troy gets this indecipherable look in his eye, the one that Abed never quite understands. Out of all of the people he knows, he’s figured out how to read Troy the easiest. He usually bears his emotions clear as day on his face; a bright smile when he’s happy, or wracking sobs when he’s sad. But this is the one look Abed couldn’t quite get. 

Abed walks over to the new couch in the living room and sits down, Troy follows. (Annie had decided to buy the couch because, “If we’re going to have guests they’ll need somewhere to sit. Plus, I don’t even have a chair yet, so I’m buying it!”) Troy sits at the other end and turns to face him. Quiet settles over them once more, all that can be heard is the hushed sound of their breathing and the gentle tapping of the rain against the glass of the windows.

Troy sighs. “Look, I don’t even know where to start with all this.”

“How about we start with why you got mad at me because of a pillow fort?” Abed asks.

“Abed, this goes so much deeper than a pillow fort. There are layers to this. This isn’t just about the past two days, it's about before that too.” Troy says, getting increasingly frustrated. He opens his mouth to continue but before he can get a word out Abed jumps in.

“Are we going to fight again? Because I didn’t like that before.”

“No,” He sighs. “We’re not gonna fight again.” He pauses. “Look, okay, how about this: we air out all this dirty laundry? And after that we’ll stop fighting forever.” Troy states, leaning forward.

“Troy, don’t you remember what happened every other time we’ve said that? The group kept fighting anyway. We can’t talk everything out once because that won’t fix anything. What happens when one of us gets angry over something else? What then?”

“We’re not the group, Abed. Can’t you see that they’re different to us? We don’t think like them. They keep fighting because they get angry at each other over small things all the time. We can’t be like them. We need to stay different, because if we fall apart like we almost did today, I don’t know what I’ll do.” He takes a breath. “What we need to do is talk out these issues and then learn to communicate better in the future. You’re my best friend. I want to be able to talk to you.”

Abed smiles, it's small, but it’s there. “When did you get so wise?” 

Troy huffs a laugh. “Your meta-ness must be rubbing off on me.” He pauses, considering. “Or maybe I’ve been paying too much attention to Jeff’s speeches.” He shakes his head as if getting rid of the thought. “Okay, we really need to talk so I’m just gonna start off by saying, this didn’t start with the pillow fort, it started with the impressionists.”

“What about them? I was just having fun.” Abed asks, confused.

“You weren’t being careful! You had spent over three thousand dollars of money you don’t have!” Troy nearly yells, voice raising towards the end. He takes a breath to calm himself. “Abed, Vinnie threatened to break your legs if you didn’t pay up. So that’s why I was so frantic at the bar mitzvah. I was busting my ass to make sure he didn’t hurt you.”

“Oh.” Abed says, shocked, unable to tear his eyes away from Troy’s face.

Troy just keeps going. “But Vinnie said your debt was paid. And then I got home, and you were sitting there in that cast and I was sure he’d lied to me and sent someone after you anyway. But it just turns out you were just messing around with more impersonators, even after we’d just paid off three grand. It was getting out of hand and you clearly didn’t know where to stop and it hurt that you didn’t notice what I was doing to help. I told you, later that night what he was planning to do, and it seemed like you didn’t even care.” 

“I did care, Troy, but I don’t always know how to process things while they’re happening” 

“Yeah, I know, buddy. It just hurt that’s all. It was like you didn’t appreciate my help.”

“I do appreciate it. And you.” He pauses. “What else?”

“Hmm?”

“You said there were layers to why you’re mad at me. What are the other layers?” 

“Oh.” Troy shifts in his seat. “Well, I guess one thing is that you always make all of the decisions.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, you’re always the Inspector and I’m always Constable Reggie. Or you’re Batman and I’m Robin. You decided we were making a pillow fort, but I wanted to make a blanket fort.”

“I let you do that.” Abed interrupts.

“Yeah, but I wanted to do it with you, not by myself. I wanted to win the world record and achieve something cool, but you didn’t want that. I’m always the sidekick, even in real life, and I’m starting to hate it.”

“But I thought you liked being Reggie?” Abed asks. “You said to me, a little while after we first started to play them, that you liked being Reggie because as you’re not the lead you have less expectations to meet. You said it helped distract you from all the things your parents want from you and from the recurring anxiety you get when you think about your future. You said you liked being the sidekick because all of that pressure was put on the lead and you just have to help.” 

“I do like being the sidekick, Abed. Especially being yours, but sometimes I like a little bit of responsibility. Sometimes I want to be the lead.” He says, sheepishly.

“Okay. Then sometimes you can be the lead.” Troy gives him a small smile. “I think you’re right, by the way, we need to communicate more often. I never would’ve known that unless you’d told me.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I shouldn’t have just gotten mad and stormed off.” 

“It’s okay. We can learn from this. Is there anything else?”

“One more, yeah, and this ones gonna suck.” He pauses, taking a deep breath, readying himself for what he’s about to say. “The email.”

Abed nods, preparing himself for what’s surely going to be a painful conversation. “Okay.” 

“It hurt, Abed, like really hurt. Those things you said about me? That it’s not hard to break me emotionally? That I’m insecure about my level of intelligence? That my greatest vulnerability is my emotional frailty and it’s incredibly easy to make me cry?” Troy nearly yells, his voice taking on a tone of incredulity. He’s staring directly at Abed, but he can’t bring himself to meet Troy’s eye. He can feel the tears welling up in his eyes. Troy must hate him. “Abed...” Troy’s voice gets softer. “You’re my best friend. You’re not supposed to think those things about me, let alone use them against me. Whether they’re true or not.”

Abed shifts his eyes to Troy’s face. Troy is crying, but not like he usually does. The tears collect on his eyelashes before gently rolling down his face. His eyes are glued to Abed’s, pleading with him to explain. This isn’t like the sobbing Abed is used to. It’s different, and somehow the scariest thing he’s ever seen. To know that he caused this, that he caused Troy so much pain, hurts him to his very core. Abed sniffs and before he can stop it, a tear of his own drops from his eye and lands on his pyjama pants. 

“I’m sorry, Troy. Truly. I don’t get people, you know this, that’s why I love movies so much. Emotions in movies are so easy to read because they’re exaggerated, I understand them. But you’re different to everyone else in the real world, you’re colourful, your emotions are always clear. I thought I had you figured out, but maybe you’re even more complex than I originally thought.” The tears are flowing freely now. It feels like Abed’s face is raining. He doesn’t like it at first, but as he continues, he begins to appreciate the way the tears spill in time with his words. “You weren’t supposed to see the email. I didn’t want you to. But I sent it because I figured that we were going to be torn apart however the war ended. It was a battle, and every battle needs a strategy. So, I thought that my side could use it to win, even though I wanted it all to be over. I didn’t want to fight, but I thought that would be the best thing to do because you wanted to fight. I never considered that we might make up.”

“You didn’t want to fight? Then why did you? Why didn’t you just come talk to me?” 

“At first I didn’t really understand what was going on. I thought it was a Dreamatorium type scenario, just outside of the Dreamatorium. Then the study room kerfuffle happened, and I was the leader of the pillow fort army by default, so I just went along with it. But then you sent me the text after you read my email and even though I wanted it all to be over, I wanted it to end on my own terms.”

“My text made you want to win?”

“Yeah.” Abed sniffs, staring at where his hands rest on his lap. “You hurt me too, Troy. It actually scared me a little. I know I’m a very closed off person, I don’t show what I’m feeling because I don’t always know how to. And that means that I don’t open up to people much and that when I do people don’t always get me. But your text showed me that maybe you know me too well. Everything you wrote hit the nail directly on the head. You were my first friend. I’d lived my whole life practically alone because the other kids thought I was weird. I never really understood having real friends until you came along. And I’m always scared that if I lost you, I’d never meet another person who understands me, because you’ve had more patience with my so-called ‘mental issues’ than my own father. Jeff, Britta, Shirley, even Annie get frustrated with me sometimes, but you never do. And I was about to lose that, so I kept fighting because I was sure I’d let myself get too close to someone and I needed to do something to build my defences back up.” 

“Abed… oh my god, I'm so sorry. I had no idea you felt like that.” Troy says, voice quivering. They’re both crying hard now. Troy reaches over and grabs Abed’s hand, squeezing it tight. 

“It’s okay. I’m sorry too. I need to learn how to talk to people, rather than keeping everything locked up.”

Troy sniffs, smiling slightly. “We both do.” Abed smiles too. Troy tugs him in by the shoulders and crushes him against his chest, and this time, Abed doesn’t hesitate before reciprocating. 

They sit like that for five minutes, holding each other, until Abed starts to feel his leg cramp from the awkward twisted position he’s sat in. He pulls back slightly, and Troy does too.

Troy glances towards the tv for a moment before turning back to Abed. “Do you wanna watch _Inspector Spacetime_?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” Troy chuckles, and Abed watches as he gets up to grab the tv remote. He sits back down next to Abed on the couch rather than going over to his recliner. It makes Abed feel warm.

So, they sit, watching their favourite show, and Abed is sure things can only get better from now on. If they can overcome this, they can overcome anything. He’s sure of it.

(And when Annie gets home the next morning to find Troy and Abed asleep on the couch, Troy’s face squished into Abed’s chest and Abed’s arms tight around his back, she doesn’t wake them. She just throws Abed’s _Batman_ blanket over and leaves them to sleep.)

**+1**

Troy is dating Britta. 

This was something Abed hadn’t expected. 

Troy and Britta weren’t a pair he thought would ever become more than friends. They weren’t compatible in any way. Troy was the jock with a heart of gold, and Britta was the rebellious type. Sure, characters like the two of them have unlikely romances in the movies but, as people constantly remind Abed, this is real life. That pairing doesn’t work in real life. Plus, Britta tends to usually only be attracted to emotionally unavailable men who are mean and weird. Like Jeff, or Vaughn, or that guy from the zoo that one time. And Troy definitely doesn’t fit that description.

When the study group first formed, Abed had run a sort of mental diagnostic for every pair of people within their seven and had come to the conclusion that no romantic pairing within the group would end up in a satisfying relationship. Jeff and Annie would never work out, Jeff’s unresolved issues with his father mixed with Annie’s need for unconditional love would eventually clash in a breakup that would surely tear the group apart. And their age gap was weird. (Plus, he was sure Annie was much less attracted to men than she claimed to be.) Jeff and Britta had very little romantic chemistry on top of the sexual relations they’d had not long ago, and even though they often acted like the parents of the group, Abed more often likened them to that one episode of _How I Met Your Mother_ in which Ted and Barney decided to platonically adopt a baby. He figured any attempt the two of them could make to have a romantic relationship would end in shambles. He also thought that Jeff was more likely to end up with Dean Pelton than any of the women in their study group. Although he had run the scenario for a romantic relationship for himself and Jeff, that hadn’t worked out either. Abed could appreciate that Jeff was attractive, but he’d come to think of Jeff as an older brother figure. He knew he and Annie would never work out, she wasn’t his type and he wasn’t hers; they were destined to be friends. Shirley’s ‘type’ didn’t apply to any of them and, as she liked to say, she intimidated them all sexually. Pierce wouldn’t end up with any of them. For obvious reasons.

When it came to himself and Troy, he decided not to run diagnostics. He thought it might jinx any possible friendship between the two of them. 

And he also knew Troy was straight. And Abed isn’t. He didn’t want to risk ruining things before they started. 

Despite what he knows the majority of people assume, Abed has known he wasn’t straight since he was a child. The first time he watched Star Wars he thought that Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were just as pretty as Princess Leia, though when he told his father this he was told to “Be quiet. Boys shouldn’t think that way.” 

Abed figured that meant that liking girls was normal, so, always the social outcast, he tried to fit in. He learned to hide how he felt about boys but would always mention when he thought a girl was pretty. His father always smiled at that at first, but then he started doing it a bit too often and he would just look at him confused instead. In the movies the girls always loved boys and the boys always loved girls. That’s how it was in every single film he saw. Something never sat right with him about the repetitive nature of all these on-screen romances, and he was tired of that one overused trop Hollywood oh-so loved. (Boy meets girl - boy and girl fall in love - boy and girl split dramatically - boy and girl end up together despite the unlikely odds.) He wondered why it was so bad for boys to like other boys so much when they weren’t hurting anyone.

It wasn’t until he watched _Brokeback Mountain_ , and saw the way that Jack and Ennis kept their relationship secret, and how they endured so much pain just because they loved one another, that he decided he wanted to be different. He wanted to like boys without being ashamed. Sure, he wasn’t going to be too open about it, the world is a cruel place after all, but he also wasn’t going to hide it.

A few days later he sat his dad down and told him. “Dad. I like boys, but I like girls too. I’m bisexual. I’m not going to hide that, but I’m not going to change either. I hope you can accept this.”

His dad was shocked at first, and he had a few questions, but at the end of the day, it was Abed. It was his son. He nodded his head and gave Abed a more than awkward pat on the back, and that was that. 

Abed had never outright asked Troy about his sexuality, he figured it was out of line. And Troy had never asked about his, so he didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. It was pretty obvious that Troy was straight from the way that he was always talking about the women in the shows they watched together, and how he zoned out when boobs were shown on screen. That, and the fact that he was dating Britta.

They tried to hide their relationship at first under the pretence that they’d just become closer friends, but Abed knew that if that was the case, Troy would’ve just told him. 

It wasn’t easy to get used to it when they started kissing in front of him, he didn’t like it, but Abed enjoyed that the lengths they went to stop him knowing that they were sleeping together were overly theatrical. He found it quite funny that Troy was so scared of what he’d think that he’d hide a normal part of a romantic relationship in such a comical way. 

So, he let them keep going for a while, he treated it like a game. He would wake up at increasingly earlier times and knock on Troy’s door to wake him and scare Britta from the room. It was mean, he knew that, but he found a strange sense of joy in it.

He finally stopped the morning of the _Inspector Spacetime_ fan convention. He woke up around 7am, stretched, and walked to the bathroom to brush his teeth. After he was done, he made a beeline for the ex-Dreamatorium. But this time, Troy was already awake. 

Through the thin wood, he could hear the tell-tale sound of his favourite show playing through Troy’s tinny laptop speakers. He knocked on the door. “Are you watching Inspector Spacetime?” He paused for a moment, listening intently to hear the hushed sounds of Troy and Britta exchanging a few urgent words. “Troy? We need to go over the convention schedule again.” He figured at least this time he had a good enough reason for interrupting them. He was both excited and nervous about the convention and he wanted to make sure everything went to plan.

“Just a minute!” Troy called out. Abed could hear his window sliding open. 

“Troy. It’s a week away and we need to revise our whole strategy.” The window slides shut. “Troy! I’ve printed out several maps of the convention centre, and colour-coded the best potential routes.” He pretended he didn’t see Britta as she got dressed on the fire escape outside their apartment’s windows. “Now, we know I have a longer stride, but I’m assuming your superior physical fitness will allow you to compensate with greater speed. One thing’s for sure, though, we need to save time by changing into our costumes in the car.” 

At that moment, Troy opened his door halfway through tying his dressing gown. “Abed, can’t we talk about this later? It’s 7am.” He walked out past him, Abed followed. 

“I know, but I want to make sure we have everything prepared. If something goes wrong everything could be ruined. And I don’t want everything to be ruined.”

Troy turned around and put a hand on his shoulder. “Abed, nothing’s going to go wrong. We’re gonna have a great time.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right.” At that moment someone knocked on the door. Abed and Troy turned toward the sound. “Coming!” Abed yelled. 

He walked over to the door and pulled it open to see Britta on the other side, leaning on the doorframe and out of breath. “Hi Abed!” She said in an odd, high pitched voice. “Just here for my breakfast date with Troy!” She looked past him to where Troy was now standing behind him.

“Good morning, Britta. I haven’t seen you in over twelve hours!” Troy replied, in an equally weird tone.

“Haha, yeah.” 

“I know you two are having sex.” Abed stated, before Britta could say anything else. 

“What?” Britta shouted. “Why didn’t you say something?”

He grabbed the donut bag out of her hand. “I love donuts.” 

Abed walked to the kitchen in time to catch Annie coming out of her room, yawning and still in her pyjamas. “Do they know, now?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Ugh, finally. I was getting fed up with waking up so early all the time.” She groaned, taking a seat at the kitchen counter. 

“You knew?” Troy and Britta yelled in unison. 

That was an interesting day. They only stayed mad at him for a little while, and Troy pulled him over after lunch to say that he actually thought it was pretty funny, but that Abed couldn’t tell Britta he’d said that. 

It was when Troy asked him why he did it that he couldn’t answer. 

He couldn’t answer when he knew that he wasn’t doing it just to mess with them, and he wasn’t doing it for the donuts. He couldn’t answer when deep down he knew it was because he was jealous. 

Abed loved Britta, he really did, she was family to him, much like the rest of the study group. Yet he couldn’t help but hate the way she’d almost wedged herself between him and Troy. He knew he shouldn’t think like that, because Troy clearly liked her back, but it hurt sometimes. It hurt when they went to the fountain together, even though Abed said it was okay. It hurt when they had breakfast together every morning and took up the time Abed would usually use to explain his crazy dreams to Troy and Annie. It hurt when Troy missed movie nights for date nights. 

He felt like he was losing his best friend, and that hurt, but it went deeper than that. 

Abed wished that he was the one holding Troy’s hand as they walked to class. He wished he was the one kissing him hello, or goodbye, or see you in five. He wished he was the one going on dates with him. He wished he was the one Troy was waking up next to in the morning.

Abed could remember the exact moment he realised he’d fallen for Troy. 

It was after they’d rescued Dean Pelton from Greendale and taken down Chang. They were back in their apartment, and Troy was saying goodbye to everyone. He was going to the AC school and for some reason that meant he wasn’t allowed to see any of them ever again.

Britta had just stepped back from giving Troy a lock of her hair, when Abed stepped forward to say goodbye. Instead of hugging him or saying goodbye, he looked at him for a moment with watery eyes, then leaned in close to his ear and said, “I know you hate when people do this in movies. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. I’m going to miss you so much.” Then he stepped back. They did their handshake. Abed’s eyes were stinging, but he refused to let himself cry. Then, the guy from the AC school was saying it was time for them to go and Troy was walking to the door. 

Abed watched him stop at the door, he hoped he’d changed his mind. Troy shut the door a moment later. And then it felt like a hole in his chest opened up. _Oh._ He thought. _I’m in love with him._

Abed stood there, with six of his closest friends, staring at the door Troy had just left through, and realised he’d been in love with his best friend all this time, only now it was too late. 

He moved toward the blanket fort, hoping to hide, but turned around when Annie called out to him. “Abed.” She paused. “What did he say to you?”

“He said, ‘I know you hate when people do this in movies.’ Sorry I got emotional.” And without a second glance, he walked into the fort, waiting for the blankets to fall shut behind him before he let the tears fall. He stifled any noise he might make by clasping at his face with his hands. He clenched his eyes shut. He wanted Troy to come back already, and he’d only just left.

That had been a few months ago now. Since then, the study group got Troy back, Britta and Troy started dating, Troy moved out of the blanket fort and into the dismantled Dreamatorium and Abed has come to terms with the fact that Troy doesn’t love him in that way. 

He probably never would.

Abed blinks out of his randomly timed flashback to find himself in the midst of an awkward lull in conversation. They were supposed to be deciding upon a project to do for their history assignment, yet no one seems to have any ideas. 

Jeff sighs. “Come on, guys, I’ve got class in 15 minutes. This should not be  
that difficult.” He pauses, no one suggests anything. We just need to figure out an idea for our final history project.” 

“What we need to figure out is Greendale's obsession with group assignments.” Britta scoffs. “Classic herd mentality.”

“All right, Britta doesn't have one.” Jeff interrupts. “Who else?”

“I've been told I look like a Kennedy.” Pierce says, he has a strange smile on his face, Abed doesn’t like it. 

“Nope, not an idea. That's a statement.” Jeff replies, smirking condescendingly. “Anyone not on medication?”

“Jeff, we have to take this seriously.” Annie chides, leaning forward in her seat. 

“This assignment? This, we have to take seriously? ‘Pick any moment from history  
and tell me about it. Be as creative as you want. Or not. I don't care. Professor Cornwaaa--’ He didn't even finish signing his name.”

“Okay, yes, he phoned this one in, but my run at Valedictorian is in jeopardy.” 

“As is mine.” Shirley interrupts. 

“As is Shirley's,” Annie corrects herself and keeps going. “And I just took one  
for the team by accepting that C-plus on our last history paper.

“As did I.” 

“As did Shirley. So, I'd think you'd want to rise to the occasion and help get me back on top.” 

“Or me.” Shirley retorts.

“Shirley, I'm speaking for both you and me.” Annie gives her an almost patronising smile.

“Then, you might want to teach your mouth how to say ‘we,’ ‘our,’ and ‘us.’” Shirley snaps in return. There’s another awkward pause. 

“I've been told I look like a Kennedy.” Pierce repeats out of nowhere. 

“Nope, still just a random statement, and still useless.” Jeff states, arms crossed in annoyance. 

“Okay.” Annie pipes up once more. “How about this? We do a series of banners-”

“Great, it's settled.” Jeff cuts her off.

“You don't even know what I'm going to say!”

“Don't need to. Tomorrow is Friday, and I have no intention of being here late. Your banner thing sounds doable, and this assignment? Passable, so passable. And passable assures my graduation, so we are doing doable and passable.” Jeff says, smiling.

“Uh, speaking of tomorrow, Troy and Britta,” Shirley chimes in, drawing out the A in Britta’s name. “Have you decided what you're gonna do for your one-year anniversary?” Annie perks up at that, but Abed feels a little bit colder. Has it really been that long?

“Of?” Troy and Britta both ask, clearly confused. 

“Your first date?” Annie says, puzzled. 

“Oh! Yeah! That was a test, and you failed.” Troy scoffs awkwardly.

“Da-doy. I was just kidding.” Britta says at the same time. The two of them stare at one another with a look in their eye that seems like a cross between apologetic uncertainty. Abed thinks he’s getting pretty good at this whole reading people schtick.

“You guys are dating?” Pierce asks. “Man! Somebody's sure working her way around the table.” Britta glares at him. “Aren't you?” He trails off.

“Well, you should really do something special, something romantic!” Annie beams as Shirley offers noises of agreement. “Like go back to Senor Kevin's for lunch, where it all began.” Shirley giggles.

“Yeah, sure. We could do that.” Britta looks to Troy for confirmation.

“Sure, that sounds fun.” Troy agrees. Then he smiles. “Speaking of anniversaries, it is the third anniversary of me and Abed watching Freaky Friday for the first time.” Abed smiles, he’s glad Troy remembered their anniversary, even if he feels bad that it overshadowed his relationship with Britta.

“Oh…” Shirley and Annie groan simultaneously. “That, you remember?”

“Movie Trolley is having an ‘End of the Video Store Chain Industry’ sale,  
so, I got you a six-pack of "body switching" movies and a two-year-old box of Raisinets, all for under five bucks.”

“Whoo!” Abed exclaims, as Troy turns to pull a stack of DVDs from his backpack. “All right, man.” He starts to flick through the cases, naming them as he goes. “Change Up. 13 Going On 30, 17 Again, 18 Again, Vice Versa.” He throws one of the DVDs towards the study room windows where it clatters as it falls. Shirley and Annie gasp.

“Judge Reinhold.” Troy explains. The girls make a noise of understanding. 

“Freaky Friday.” Abed looks at Troy in wonder. He puts on his ‘Hallmark movie’ voice. “Oh, Troy, you are so thoughtful. I wish I had the capacity for sentimentality like you do.”

“Me?” Troy matches him, getting up from his seat. “I wish I was more like you. No emotional hang-ups, endless cool adventures. You have it so easy.”

“No, you do, Troy.” Abed stands up too, taking the DVD with him.

“No, you do, Abed.” Troy grabs the other end of the DVD case and locks eyes with him.

“I wish I could switch places with you for just one day!” They both yell, before beginning to babble gibberish and spin in circles. The lights start flickering overhead, Abed thinks it’s a nice touch. After a few moments they fall down to the ground.

The lights stop flickering. Abed hears someone say, “Sorry. Routine light switch check.”

Abed and Troy stand up. They sigh in disappointment when they realise they’re still themselves. “I thought that would work.” Troy says. 

“Yeah, we’re all floored it didn’t.” Jeff says sarcastically, engrossed in his phone. 

“Jeff,” Annie reprimands. “Let them have their fun.” 

Jeff pulls his phone away from his face and scoffs. “I’m sorry, but I live in the real world, where people can’t switch bodies with another person at will.” He gasps overdramatically. “Oh wait! You guys also live in that world too! Because body switching only happens in movies and on television, and as much as Abed likes to say we’re on a tv show, this is real life.” He stands up. “Anyway, I’ve got to get to class, so I’ll see you guys later.” Jeff moves to leave. 

“Your class doesn’t start for another ten minutes!” Britta yells after him.

“Uh huh!” Jeff shouts in reply as he keeps walking. The group looks around at each other before gradually leaving the room themselves. 

“Hey, buddy, wake up!” Troy walks into the blanket fort the next morning talking strange. Abed thinks it sounds like listening to himself on a recording. He sits up in bed and looks down to where Troy is standing. “Remember yesterday, when we faked a body switching thing and it didn’t work? Well, now, it’s actually worked.” 

Abed understands immediately. Since the pillow forts vs blanket forts argument last year, and despite Troy’s fledgling relationship, Abed and Troy had taken the time to talk about their feelings when they were overwhelmed or sad or angry. (Not _those_ feelings though. Abed keeps _those_ feelings in a locked safe in his heart.) So, he gets that Troy is feeling a lot of something right now, something bad, and that he doesn’t know how to deal with it properly so he’s turned to the body switching trope in order to cope temporarily. Abed thinks it’s quite smart. He jumps down from the top bunk, imagining himself landing in Troy’s metaphorical shoes. “So, right now…”

“I’m you and you’re me.” Troy says, finishing his sentence. For the sake of theatrics and dedication to his part, Abed-as-Troy turns to the mirror behind him and pulls at his face, as if getting used to a new body. He turns back to Troy-as-Abed. “Oh my god, this is wrinkling my brain! And of all of the days! I’ve got a big important meeting with my study group.”

“Me too. Oh boy, here goes nothing.” They both lightly tapped each other’s palms while simultaneously tapping their hearts. Abed-as-Troy thinks the simple gesture feels odd when he’s not doing it in his own body. 

Their hands fall, and at the same time they pull open their pyjama pants and look down. They both hum words of appreciation before Troy-as-Abed walks matter of factly out of the fort for breakfast, Abed-as-Troy saunters after him. 

They find Britta in the kitchen, already dressed and standing next to a pot of freshly brewed coffee. She’s clutching a steaming mug to her chest. “Morning Abed. Troy.” She takes a sip.

Abed-as-Troy looks at Troy-as-Abed, who hides himself behind the now open fridge door, before realising Britta was talking to him. She thinks he’s Abed. “Uh, morning.” 

Troy-as-Abed pulls milk and orange juice out of the fridge and shuts the door, he grabs himself a glass from the cupboard and passes Abed-as-Troy a mug. Abed pauses for a moment staring at the mug in his hands. He doesn’t like coffee, he never has. He usually drinks OJ in the morning, and when he looks up, he sees that that’s exactly what Troy-as-Abed is doing. 

He steps towards the counter, reminding himself in his head that he’s doing this for Troy, and picks up the coffee pot, pouring some into the mug. Luckily, Troy takes his coffee with lots of milk and lots of sugar, so he adds that too. Abed never really understood the point of drinking coffee at all if he was going to change it so much. 

Troy usually chugs one full cup before making another, but Abed steels himself before taking a sip. He really doesn’t like coffee. He takes a deep breath and gulps it all down, fighting the grimace from his face. 

When Abed-as-Troy puts down his mug he glances towards Britta, her face is scrunched up in confusion. He smiles at her, and then looks to where Troy-as-Abed is helpfully avoiding eye contact, sipping tentatively at his orange juice.

Abed-as-Troy makes himself a second cup that Abed-as-himself prays he won’t have to drink. Britta closes her eyes and inhales the coffee steam. 

An uncomfortable silence settles over the room, only broken by Abed-as-Troy stirring his coffee with a teaspoon. 

When the silence becomes a little too much to bear, Abed-as-Troy moves towards the cereal cupboard and opens the door. Troy-as-Abed has the same idea, and so they reach in at the same time and each pull out a box. By force of habit, they both end up grabbing the cereal they would usually have, as themselves. With a quick glance at each other, they hastily swap boxes and start filling up their bowls.

“Where’s Annie?” Troy-as-Abed asks, casually pouring milk over his cereal as if nothing strange just happened.

“She left early for school. What’s going on with you guys?” Britta says in a suspicious tone of voice. 

“Nothing.” The boys reply in unison, too fast to be normal. 

“Right…” She places her mug in the sink. “Okay, my psych class is meeting early this morning so I’m gonna get going.” She walks over to Troy-as-Abed and kisses him in the cheek, he freezes. She walks over to the dining table, grabs her jacket and back from the back of a chair and moves toward the door. “I’ll see you later?” No one says anything, Troy-as-Abed keeps staring into his bowl. “Uh, bye then.” Britta says awkwardly, leaving the apartment.

The tension drains from Troy as soon as the door clicks shut. “Abed?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry for dropping this on you, I just really need to not be myself today.” He sighs.

“It’s okay. I get it. You’d do the same for me.” Abed smiles at him. Troy smiles back, eyes watery.

“Thanks.” Troy straightens up, becoming Abed again. “Do you want to watch Inspector Spacetime while we eat?”

Abed-as-Troy beams. “Yeah, man!” They do that all to familiar handshake, before grabbing their bowls and making their way to the living room.

A couple hours later, Troy-as-Abed and Abed-as-Troy walk into the study room and take their usual seats at the table. Except, from the looks they get from the rest of the group, something is wrong. Abed-as-Troy realises a second later how this must look, what the rest of the group sees is Abed and Troy switching seats without explanation. He catches Troy-as-Abed’s eye. They switch seats.

“Woah! That was weird.” Troy-as-Abed says, trying to fix the situation. Abed-as-Troy hums in agreement.

“We didn’t mean to do that. We know exactly where we sit.” Abed-as-Troy pipes up, trying to sound as much like normal Abed as he can. 

“Um, what’s going on with you guys?” Annie is watching them with a concerned and confused expression. 

“Oh, thank god you noticed.” They say in unison.

Abed-as-Troy leans forward and places his hand on the table, dropping the ‘normal Abed’ facade. “Remember when we pretended to switch bodies yesterday?”

Jeff rolls his eyes, arms folded in annoyance. “Unfortunately, yes, dorks.”

“Well, it actually happened.” Troy-as-Abed explains. “I’m actually Abed.”

“And I’m actually Troy!” Abed-as-Troy throws his arms out in exclamation before leaning back in his seat and putting his feet up on the table. 

“Alright, I don’t care who’s who.” Jeff huffs, getting to his feet. “We’re all here, and that’s all I need to complete this passable project in a doable amount of time.” He walks off towards the tables where Annie has set up craft supplies for their project. 

“Wish we could help, Jeff, but in order to switch back, we have to recreate the exact moment that this all happened, but the DVD is missing.”

“Of course it is.”

“So now, I have to find it, while Troy goes on an anniversary date with Britta.” Troy-as-Abed points at Britta.

“What?” Britta falters. Troy-as-Abed shoots a finger gun her way and gets up to leave. Abed had completely forgotten about Troy’s anniversary with Britta, he’d been too wrapped up in making sure his Troy impression was perfect. Not that he doesn’t love Britta, she is one of his closest friends after all, but Abed makes sure to keep himself separate from Troy’s relationship with her. He always changes the topic when Troy brings up her name, so he isn’t sure he knows how a date with her will go, even if he is pretending to be his best friend. Although, Abed supposes he’ll just have to trust his own dedication to character work and see where that takes him. 

“How about you make a banner as Troy, and you make a banner as Abed, and we’ll be done within the hour.” Jeff snaps. Abed-as-Troy stands up and picks up his bag, following Troy-as-Abed out of the room. 

They’re only walking for a few moments before Britta calls out to them. “Wait, Troy!” They turn to face her.

“I’m Abed.” Troy-as-Abed corrects.

“Oh, right.” She sighs, before plastering a fake smile on her face. “Uh, ‘Troy,’ could you please excuse us?”

Abed-as-Troy gently taps Troy-as-Abed’s shoulder and walks a few steps away to the bookshelf. He pretends to browse as he listens to Britta and Troy-as-Abed’s conversation.

“You were weird this morning, and now, well, weirder. Are we still on for Senor Kevin’s or are you guys doing this whole switchy thing?” Britta asks. Abed-as-Troy picks up a book and fakes reading it.

“Actually, he’s kind of going through some stuff.”

“Oh.” “Britta says, her voice taking on a tone of worry. “Is he having some issues that he’s having trouble dealing with?”

“Yeah, he kinda needs this, so he’s really laying into it.”

“Oh, so he might need an almost therapist.” Britta says, excitedly. “Perhaps I’ll pencil him in for a session, you know, after my date with Troy. See you later, Abed.” And with that Britta walks off. 

Abed puts his book down and, breaking character for a moment, walks up to Troy. “Are you okay?” 

The tension bleeds from Troy’s shoulders. “I will be. Sorry for throwing this on you, man, I just…” He sighs. “I can’t explain why, but I just need this today, okay?”

Abed nods. He watches as Troy becomes him again. “I have to get to class. Enjoy your date with Britta.” And then he walks away. 

As Abed watches him go, he can’t help but think there are layers to what’s going on with him. He wishes he could help in more ways than pretending to be him, but if that’s what Troy needs, that’s what he’ll do.

So, Abed takes a deep breath and lets ‘Troy’ take over. 

A couple hours later, Abed-as-Troy meets Britta as Senor Kevin’s for lunch. As the hostess seats them at a table, Abed can’t help but think about how strange it was going to Troy’s classes instead of his own. He’s wondering how Troy found his film class when Britta starts talking. 

“So, Troy, how’s Abed coping?” Britta asks. “I mean, with his day in your body.” She clarifies. 

“You’d have to ask him. I, for one, am freaked.” Abed-as-Troy starts wiggling around. “Look at his arms and legs. He’s like the pick-up sticks of people.” 

“Do you think he’s trying to hide from something he’s not understanding?”

“If you’re worried about Abed, you should talk to him.” 

“Right. I should talk to him.” 

“Well, well, well. John McLame.” The waiter struts over. Abed reminds himself to stay calm. “Never thought I’d see your face again. Back for more, huh?”

“I’m sorry, back for what?” Abed-as-Troy asks, feigning innocence. 

“Punishment.” He states. “Last time I saw you, you got your panties all in a wad ‘cause I said _Die Hard_ was a suckfest of a movie.” 

Abed keeps his breathing steady, bouncing his leg under the table to make sure he doesn’t break. He wants to yell about how the waiter is wrong, he wants to stand up and scream it right in his face. But he can’t. Everything will fall apart if he argues with the waiter, he has to keep going, or he’ll ruin this for Troy. 

“Wait, what?” Britta forces out. “You hate _Die Hard_? That sounds insane to me.” It’s obvious to Abed that Britta is trying her best to make him break character, but it won’t be easy. Abed knows he’s stronger than she thinks.

“It is, without a doubt, the most unnecessary movie ever made.”

Abed-as-Troy just keeps smiling. Troy doesn’t feel as strongly about _Die Hard_ as Abed does, he lets that fuel him. “I’m not who you think I am, man.”

Britta narrows her eyes at him. “What else do you hate about the movie? ‘Cause I would love to hear all of your opinions.” 

The waiter laughs. “Well, I mean, where to even start.” Then his face turns serious. “It’s riddled with plot holes. There’s no logic to it. I would rather watch a napkin sit and do nothing all day than to even endure the trailer for _Die Hard_!”

Abed imagines what Troy would be thinking of right now. ‘Abed, you wouldn’t believe the wack-ass things the waiter at Senor Kevin’s said about _Die Hard_ this time!’ That keeps him going enough to sit through the waiter’s wrong opinions. 

“Wow, that’s hatred.” Britta stares at him, waiting for him to break. 

Abed-as-Troy glances between Britta and the waiter before leaning forward in his seat. “Babe, we should order.” He glances at his menu. “I’m both starving and another word for wanting food.”

The waiter takes their order, obviously annoyed that he didn’t succeed in baiting a fight out of Abed, and leaves them alone. Silence lingers long after he’s gone, turning tense and heavy. Britta watches him from across the table, a stubborn look in her eye and a curious tilt to her head. Abed-as-Troy doesn’t dare say anything.

The quiet lasts well into their meal. When the awkwardness finally becomes too much to bear, Abed-as-Troy asks. “How’s your bean burrito?” 

“Good. Thank you for ordering for me.” 

“I know what you always get.” 

“Yeah, you know me so well.” Britta says in a monotone voice.

“I know a lot about you. I know you grind your teeth at night, it keeps me up, I know about your tattoo.”

“Which one?” She interjects. 

“The Greenpeace one you haven’t gotten yet because you’re afraid of needles.” Abed may have tried to avoid conversations about Britta, but sometimes Troy told him things before he had a chance to change the subject. Those little things stuck in his brain like spinach in teeth.

“Did Troy tell you these things?” 

Abed-as-Troy sighs. “I am Troy.” 

“Well, it must upset Abed to hear all of this relationship talk.”

“He doesn’t seem to care.” Abed-as-Troy shrugs, but Abed knows he’s lying.

“Maybe.” She pauses. “But maybe he doesn’t like talking to you about us. I could see that causing him to act out.”

“Nah, I don’t see that. I don’t think he’s that invested in us.”

“But he talks to you about us.”

“I talk to him.” He cuts her off. 

Britta looks away, playing with her food. “What do you say when you talk to him about us? Do you tell him that things are good?”

“I don’t know. Are they?” He blurts it out before he can stop himself.

“Well, what do you think?”

“Well…” He pauses. “I guess I wonder why we didn’t remember our anniversary.”

“Not everybody’s Annie.”

“No, but I don’t know. Seems like, you know, that would be special to us, like, especially if things were good. Something we’d wanna celebrate.”

“Well, we are.” Britta trails off.

“Are we?” They look at one another, neither person really knowing where to go with the conversation. Britta looks hurt. Abed hopes he hasn’t made a mistake somewhere, what if he’s sabotaging their relationship when they’re actually. He has to keep reminding himself that he knows Troy better than anyone, and that if this is where his ‘Troy-brain’ has taken him, then he must be on the right path. Troy might’ve said something about not being happy with Britta when Abed wasn’t listening and his mind must’ve registered it anyway. At least, Abed hopes that’s the case. 

“How long have you felt this way?” Britta asks, as the waiter comes over and clears their plates from the table. “Or at least, how long have you been talking to Abed about this?” 

Abed-as-Troy shrugs and Abed hopes he says the right thing. “Not that long. It’s more lately, I guess. It’s felt different, like we’re working at it too hard. And I don’t think it should be. Relationships should be easy, but ours isn’t. It feels like we’re just going through the motions. Like I’m forcing it, just doing what you’re supposed to. And I’m afraid that if I don’t, then it just ends. Then what? What if we’re not friends anymore? I’d hate that.” He sighs. “I’d hate myself. I don’t wanna lose what we have.” He takes a breath. “So, I’m here, at this point, not knowing how to talk to you, not knowing how to tell you that I...” He trails off. Abed knows he may be acting as Troy right now, but it’s not his place to say what Troy wants.

Britta manages to fill in the blanks. “Wait, are you breaking up with me?” 

“I think so?” He says, voice full of uncertainty. He hopes he hasn’t ruined this for Troy. Britta looks like she might cry.

“So…” 

“Yeah, I don’t think this is the way either of us thought this would go”

“No,” Britta lets out a breath. “I can’t say that I did. I mean, not this, not us here.” She sighs. “But I can say that whenever you guys switch back to your original bodies, I wanna thank Abed for being such a good friend to both of us.” 

“Troy, wait.” Abed-as-Troy and Britta turn to where Troy-as-Abed is walking into the restaurant, Jeff in tow. “Don’t do it like this. I understand why you had to go high concept, because you’re scared, but Britta deserves better. Troy, it’s time.” He pulls the DVD out of his pocket and holds it out.

Abed-as-Troy stands up and grabs the other end of the DVD. “I wish I had my own body back!” They both yell, and then they’re spinning and babbling gibberish again as the lights flicker overhead. _Nice touch, Jeff._ Abed thinks. 

After a moment or two they stop spinning, dropping the DVD to the floor. To keep up appearances and make a show of them being back in their own bodies, they both pull open their pants and look down, humming in appreciation. 

Abed, now back to being himself, picks up the DVD and walks over to Jeff, watching Troy sit down across from Britta. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to see this.” Jeff says, grabbing the DVD from his hand and throwing it across the restaurant. 

Abed watches Troy and Britta talking. They both look on the verge of tears, but Britta’s smiling. He feels like he’s watching something he shouldn’t when Britta reaches across the table and takes Troy’s hand. He looks away.

He realises pretty quickly that Jeff is still watching them. He’s squinting as if he’s trying to read their lips. So, Abed tugs on his jacket sleeve and starts to pull him out of the restaurant. “Come on.”

They walk out to Jeff’s car and sit in it. They’re quiet for a moment. But it’s comfortable.

“It was nice, what you did for Troy today.” Jeff says softly. “I would never have been able to do what you did for him. He was going through a pretty tough time but it looks like you really helped him. You did a good job, kid.”

“Thanks. I don’t usually know how to help people when they’re sad, but I understand Troy a lot easier than most people.” Abed sighs. “Other people are hard to read. It’s so easy to misinterpret them. They’ll say one thing and mean another. It’s confusing.” He pauses. “But Troy isn’t like that. Things are easy with him. I can always understand what he means, and if I don’t get things, he’s there to explain them to me. Sometimes I wonder what I’d do without him.” He smiles. “Sometimes I forget there was a time I didn’t know him.”

“Wow. You really think that highly of him?” Abed looks at Jeff expecting a smirk or a quirked eyebrow, but instead Jeff is looking at him with a tender expression Abed would never have thought him capable of showing.

“He’s my best friend. I’d do anything for him.”

“Abed, this might sound crazy but, do you think of Troy as more than a friend?”

Abed’s eyes widen, a spike of fear building in his throat. He knows that he has nothing to be afraid of, it’s only Jeff, but something about being figured out so easily sets him on edge.

Abed opens his mouth to reply but before he can get a word out, the back doors of the car open and a soaking Britta and Troy climb into the back seat. Abed hadn’t even noticed it’d started raining.

“It is raining cats and dogs out there!” Britta exclaims, squeezing some of the moisture from her hair. “Jeff, can you get us back to Greendale? I just got a text from Annie asking us to get back so we can do the banners.” 

Jeff rolls his eyes and starts the car. Abed watches Troy in the rear-view mirror, he looks out of the window the entire ride. 

The rain has finally subsided when they get back to the library. They meet up with Shirley and Annie on the stairs out front.

“Shirley and I went to see the Dean, like Jeff said, and he told us that Leonard was only in the lead for valedictorian on a technicality! Can you believe that?” She pauses. “Wait, actually that isn’t surprising at all. Anyway, the Dean kicked him from the running for us. So, I’m number two again, which is what it is.” Annie says as they walk down the corridor. “But, you know,” She continues, turning to Shirley. “If I’m not gonna be valedictorian, I’m glad it will be you.”

“Me too.” Shirley hums in agreement.

“You mean, you hope it’s me if it’s not you, or that you’re glad it’s you?”

“Yes.” Shirley nods. 

“Thanks for everything you did for me today.” Troy says. “I’m sorry I pulled you into it. That was my problem not yours.” 

“It’s the best way someone’s ever woken me up in my life.” He smiles at him.

“Oh, there you are!” Pierce exclaims as they reach the study room. “I got bored waiting, so I went ahead and did our whole project.”

Annie scoffs. “Pierce, no offence, but banners are kind of my…” She trails off as they walk into the study room to see Pierce’s finished banners hung up around the room.

“Holy makes-no-sense-whatsoever.” Jeff exclaims in surprise.

“Whole thing took 25 minutes tops.” 

“Huh…” Everyone says in unison. 

“Early weekend? Early weekend? Early weekend?” Jeff asks, smiling and pointing to each of them. 

At that moment Dean Pelton comes running into the room. “Guys, I need to apologise for my behaviour today. When I switched bodies with Jeffrey…”

“Nope.” Jeff interrupts, but the Dean just keeps going. 

“I thought I knew what it would be like to have Jeffrey inside of me…” 

“That did not happen.” He interrupts once more.

“But as it turns out, having Jeffrey inside of me…”

“Nope again.”

“Only brought out the worst in me. Which is to say, having Jeffrey inside of me…”

“No one was inside of anyone!”

“Was wrong…” The Dean takes a long pause. “To have Jeffrey inside of me.”

“Shut up!” Jeff shouts.

“So, I’m sorry. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I scolded Leonard today, and according to Greendale bylaws, I now have to grant him three wishes.” And with that he rushes off, presumably to track down Leonard. 

“Um, we need to get scolded by the Dean immediately.” Troy blurts, presumably as excited by the prospect of three wishes as Abed is. 

With that, the group starts shuffling towards their next classes. Abed is following behind Annie when he realises Troy isn’t beside him. He walks back towards the study room in time to see Troy and Britta pulling away from a hug. He stays out of the way of the door as he watches Britta walk out of the study room’s back door, leaving Troy standing in the middle of the room.

Abed watches him take a deep breath and rub at his eyes, before walking toward where Abed is stood. He startles when he notices Abed.

“Abed. I didn’t see you there, what’s up?” 

“Nothing. I just wondered where you’d gone.” He tilts his head. “Are you okay?”

Troy clears his throat. “Yeah. I’m fine.” Abed thinks he’s lying, but he doesn’t get the chance to say as much before Troy is speaking again. “Come on, we’re gonna be late for class.”

Troy is awkward around him for the rest of the day, avoiding eye contact and giving stilted replies when Abed tries to talk to him. It’s this that tells Abed he was right about Troy lying. It’s okay though, he figures Troy just needs some time to sort out his feelings after ending things with Britta.

When they get home Troy walks straight to his bedroom and shuts the door before Abed can even get a word out. He stares at the door for a moment, hoping that Troy might reappear. He doesn’t.

“What’s up with him?” Annie says. Abed gives her a look. “Ohhh… yeah.” She pauses. “Should one of us go see if he’s okay?”

Abed hesitates. He wants nothing more to go knock on Troy’s door and ask if he wants a hug, but he knows that’s not what Troy needs right now. “No. We should give him some space.” He says, and then walks into the kitchen to make special drink, leaving Annie dumbfounded by the apartment door. 

Troy doesn’t come out for dinner that night. Abed only knows he ate because when he gets up the next morning the plate Annie left outside of his door is empty. 

They don’t see him at all that day. Abed thinks it’s a good job that it's Saturday and they don’t have class; Annie would hate for him to skip. 

He hopes that they’ll see Troy on Sunday. He, Annie and Abed have a tradition of sleeping until 10am and then making brunch together. Annie even makes pancakes. Abed gets out of bed a little before ten and waits in the kitchen for everyone else to wake up. 10am arrives and Annie comes shuffling out of her room in slippers and a dressing gown. “Morning.” She yawns. 

Troy doesn’t get up. Or, if he does, he doesn’t come out of his room. Still, Abed and Annie make pancakes hoping it’ll coax him out. It doesn’t. The two of them sit at the table, frowns upon their faces. Pancakes don’t taste the same without Troy. 

They see him on Monday, but that’s only because they have class. He shuffles out of his room in his pyjamas, avoiding eye contact as he makes his way to the bathroom. Abed shares a hopeful look with Annie. 

But then, Troy sits in the back of the car and spends the entire drive staring gloomily out of the window. Only grunting in reply when Annie tries to goad him into conversation. When they get to the school, he rushes off. He doesn’t show up for lunch, and the group stares in shock when Abed says he doesn’t know where he is. When they meet that afternoon in the study room Troy’s absence leaves a heaviness. It’s then that Abed realises he’s what keeps this group together. 

Abed decides, that evening when he gets home to find Troy’s door already shut, that he’s going to make him talk to him. He doesn’t like the idea of Troy bottling up his feelings. He shudders as he remembers where that got them last time. 

Abed walks over to Troy’s door and knocks. “Troy? Are you in there? Can we talk?” He gets no reply. He figures he could just open the door, but he doesn’t want to go so far as to invade Troy’s privacy.

It’s over two weeks before Abed can get Troy to talk to him again. He’s knocked on his door countless times to no avail, even when he tried bribing him out with the new _Spiderman_ comic. He’d even tried sending Annie as a sort of Trojan horse. That hadn’t worked either.

Abed has also spent his fair share of the past fortnight staring longingly at that door, as if by staring hard enough, he could make Troy open it. 

Tonight, Abed decides, is going to be the night he gets Troy to open that door. Physically and metaphorically. They had the place to themselves as Annie had left the apartment around lunchtime to meet up with Shirley and Britta for ‘girl’s afternoon’. (It had to be afternoon, as Shirley’s kids hindered her from leaving the house after 8pm.)

Around 5pm, Abed walks up to Troy’s door and knocks. He gets no response, as he had expected. “Troy? I’m going to the grocery store, we’re out of orange juice.” He listens for a moment to see if he can hear any movement. He hears nothing.

Abed walks over to the apartment door and opens it, slamming it shut a second later. He tip-toes a little further into the apartment, taking a seat at the kitchen counter, and waits.

A few minutes later, Troy’s door slowly creaks open and Troy comes out. He looks tired. He jumps when he sees Abed. “Abed! I thought you were going to the store?”

“No. I just said that to make you think I was leaving the apartment. I wanted to see if I could get you to come out of your room.” 

“You can’t trick people like that, Abed. It’s not cool.” And with that, Troy turns around and starts storming back to his room.

“Troy, wait.” Abed says frantically, rushing towards him. “Please.”

Troy stops, sighing, and turns back round to face him. “What?”

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.”

“F-I-N-E or F-Y-N-E?”

Troy hesitates. “F-Y-N-E.” 

“I think you’re lying.” Abed states. “I think you’re actually F-I-N-E and you don’t want to tell me.”

“I don’t have to tell you everything.” Troy says, defensively.

“No.” Abed pauses. “But you’ve been avoiding me for two weeks. I miss you.” He sighs. “You’re my best friend, Troy. Who do we talk to if we can’t talk to each other?”

Troy sniffles, and Abed can see as his eyes start to water. He hiccups, and then starts crying. It’s not the same as it usually is, but somehow, Abed thinks, this time is different to all the others.

Abed leads Troy to the couch and sits him down, grabbing a blanket from his recliner and wrapping it around his shoulders. “What’s wrong?” He asks.

Troy looks at him for a second and then shifts his gaze to the coffee table. “I…” He starts, but before he can get another word out, he starts hyperventilating, his breaths coming in short, stuttering bursts. 

Abed doesn’t know what to do. He’s used to Troy crying, but it’s never been this bad. He notices Troy’s hand shaking where it’s clutching at the blanket and, in an attempt to comfort him, Abed reaches out and grabs it. It has the opposite effect to what Abed had hoped, however, because as soon as Abed’s skin touches Troy’s he freezes, staring at where their hands are connected. He stops hyperventilating, stops crying.

A moment passes and Abed thinks holding Troy’s hand might’ve actually succeeded in comforting him, but then Troy starts crying again, twice as hard as he was before. 

“Troy, come on. What’s so bad that you can’t tell me? It’s me? I-” But Troy cuts him off. 

“It’s like,” He takes a breath. “My entire life I’ve been this person, right? This person that everyone likes. That everyone thinks they know. High school was the worst. I was an airhead, a jock, the star quarterback.” He sniffs. “I was the kid who won every popularity contest. And everyone thought that was it. No one ever thought to look past the letterman jacket, no one ever thought that there’s maybe more to me than meets the eye. I’m tired of people just assuming that everything I am comes at face value. I’m different, and I know that now. And I’m tired of pretending that I’m not. I know I’ve changed since high school, but I still find myself reverting back to how I was back then, and I hate it. Because that doesn’t feel like me anymore.” He sighs, tears now gently rolling down his cheeks. “Maybe it never was. Because maybe that person doesn’t exist. Maybe I just made him up to hide from what’s been building inside of me my entire life.”

Abed feels Troy grab his hand back and squeeze. He’s not sure if Troy knows he’s doing it. 

“My entire life I thought it was wrong to be like this. That it was wrong to think this way. I’m so used to hiding behind sports and popularity that I don’t even know how to be me. I still feel nauseous every time I look too long, and my hands shake if I even imagine a scenario where…” He trails off, taking a shuddering breath. “I’m tired of living like this. Of living a lie. It’s like I’m at the bottom of this hole, and every time I catch myself staring and look away, every time I convince myself it’s wrong, the hole gets bigger and bigger and the light above me gets smaller until I’m surrounded by this darkness that seems inescapable. And I wanted, no, needed to get out, right? So I’m climbing, using all of my strength to try and get free, but it sometimes feels useless because I’ll catch myself thinking again and I’ll remind myself I can’t, that it’s bad, and then I’m falling. And then I’m stuck at the bottom again. I need to get out so badly, because I’ve been in this hole my entire life, and every day the light gets smaller. The dark is suffocating, Abed, It’s getting hard to breath.”

And then everything clicks. “Oh.” Abed says, barely a whisper, more of a breath. It all makes sense. He knows exactly what Troy is trying to say. Troy just keeps going.

“So, I started the dance classes, you know? I needed a way to let out my feelings, express myself. Something that made me feel free without it being something that went against what my head was telling me was right. Dancing just fits, you know? It took the weight of my chest, even if only for a little while.” Troy sighs, the tears have finally slowed, and his breathing isn’t so harsh anymore. “Abed? I’m gay.”

And Abed is stunned into silence. 

After that speech, he knew what was coming. But hearing the words out loud still feels world changing. 

He sits, gaping for a moment, unable to speak, until Troy does. “Abed, say something.” 

“I’m bisexual.” He blurts. 

And then it’s Troy’s turn to stare. “What?” He exclaims. 

“I’m bi.” He pauses from a moment. Troy looks shocked, or maybe confused. Abed can’t tell. He explains anyway. “Bisexual. It means to be attracted to two or more genders. It-”

“I know what it means, Abed.” Troy interrupts. He goes quiet for a second, considering. “You are? Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“I never explicitly hid it from anyone, but it was never relevant to the plot, so it felt unnecessary to mention. Although, now I see that that just pushes the harmful stereotype that sexuality is only beneficial as a plot device, and that non-straight characters aren’t useful otherwise. But, I mean, how many half-Polish, half-Arabic, bisexual Muslim men have you seen on TV? I can count exactly zero. My existence in itself breaks a stereotype, and change often makes audiences uncomfortable, so-”

“Abed!” Troy raises his voice a little, squeezing his hand. Oh, they’re still holding hands. “This isn’t TV, buddy. This is real life. You don’t have to worry about an audience. It’s just you and me right now.” Troy took a breath. “How long have you known?” 

“Since I was a kid. My dad knows already.”

“Have you told anyone else?”

“You’re wondering if I told anyone else before I told you, to which the answer is no. I’ve never felt the need to come out before. Jeff might know, but not because I told him. He just manages to understand me sometimes. It’s rare, but it happens.”

There’s a lull in the conversation. Troy’s nodding as if he’s trying to make sense of it all. Abed just watches him.

“Does anyone else know about you?” Abed asks just to get rid of the silence.

“Yeah, Britta knows. I told her back in Senor Kevin’s when we broke up. She kind of already figured it out.” Troy huffs out a laugh. 

“How?” Abed questions, tilting his head in confusion.

“Huh? What do you mean?” 

“How did she figure it out? Britta is smart but she’s not very observant. I’ve run simulations on everyone in our group, and everyone seems to be oblivious to certain things to an extent. Like how Pierce zones out of conversations and loses time. Or how Annie doesn’t realise she isn’t really in love with Jeff, just what he represents.” Abed pauses. “What I’m trying to say is, you don’t show any outward signs of being gay, meaning you don’t fit to any well-known stereotypes, so how did Britta figure it out? Remember the Paige fiasco? She’s usually notoriously bad with these things.”

“I can’t tell you.” Troy won’t look Abed in the eye. 

“Friends don’t lie, remember?” 

“I-uh… I-” He drops his hold on Abed’s hand and starts to fiddle with the hem of his sweater. His breathing speeds up just a little, and Abed knows he’s scared. 

“Troy? Are you okay?” Abed asks. “Like you said, it’s just you and me.”

“That’s the problem!” Troy cries, his voice cracking. Abed is taken aback.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I’ll just go then.” Abed stands and makes to leave, but he doesn’t get far before he feels a hand grab his wrist.

“No, wait!” Troy sighs. “I’ll tell you, but you’re not gonna like it.”

Abed sits back down next to Troy and waits for him to speak.

“So, while I was figuring myself out, it seems Britta was doing some realising of her own.” Troy takes a breath. “She told me that I never cared about her as much as…” Troy stops. He’s staring at Abed with a strange look on his face, a look that he knows. The words are stuck in Troy’s throat.

“As much as?”

Troy shakes his head as if to clear the fog from his mind. “As much as I care about you.”

Abed’s breath catches in his throat. This can’t mean what he thinks it means, that’s impossible. Troy doesn’t feel _that_ way. He can’t get his hopes up.

Troy keeps talking, and Abed feels himself latching into every word.

“She told me that, even though I was, by definition, dating her, it’s almost as if I wasn’t. She said that if my attention was on her, as soon as you walked into the room it would shift to you. She said that she was just in the way of us. And then I asked her what she meant by that and she said I look at you differently than I do her. And then I asked her what _that_ meant and she said that Annie said that I look at her like I’m glad she’s around, but that I wouldn’t be lost without her.”

“And how do you look at me?” Abed asks, voice quiet, almost a whisper, like he’s just breathing the words and waiting for Troy to absorb them.

This time Troy takes his time with the words. “She said I look at you like you hung the moon. Like, if you told me you hand created each of the stars, I’d believe it.” Troy looks down at the carpet, and laughs, empty and cold. “And you know what, she’s right.” Troy looks up at him.

It feels as if all the air is sucked out of the room. Everything is frozen and Abed is stuck in that one moment, the moment after those words left Troy’s lips. Those cursed words that get him thinking that maybe, just maybe, they mean what he wants them to mean. 

“Abed?” He’s brought back to reality to find Troy watching him, a worried expression painted on his face. “You alright there, buddy?” Abed can only nod. 

Troy nods in return, shifting in his seat. He laughs again, this time more awkward than cold. “You wanna know the funniest thing Britta told me? She said you feel the same way.” 

Troy has barely finished his sentence before Abed lunges forward and wraps him in a hug. He feels Troy startle for a moment, before carefully winding his arms around Abed’s back and squeezing him gently. Abed feels him tuck his shoulder. 

They sit like that for a moment, and then Abed finally finds his voice again, or at least part of it. 

“I do.” Abed croaks out, so quiet he’s not even sure if Troy heard him.

“What?” 

“I said I-”

“No, I heard what you said.” Troy pulls away, holding Abed by the shoulders at arms length. “What do you mean?” 

“I feel the same way.”

Troy looks shocked, but a split second later that changed to something close to anger. “Don’t mess with me, Abed. That’s not cool. This isn’t a TV show, remember.”

“I’m not messing with you. I Promise. Friends don’t lie.”

And just like that Troy’s expression softens. “You do?” 

Abed nods, reaching up a careful hand and placing it on Troy’s cheek. His face is warm, Abed wonders if that’s what blushing feels like. Slowly, he leans forward, until his face is mere centimetres from Troy’s. “I’m going to kiss you know.”

Troy nods, but before their lips touch, he blurts. “Wait, you’re not playing a character right now are you?”

“No. Not unless you want me to.” 

“No! Just Abed is perfect.” 

Abed’s lips quirk up in a smile, and then he’s leaning forward and gently pressing his lips to Troy’s. That’s all it is for a moment, just a tender pressure, a careful push. Then Troy sighs and Abed finds himself deepening the kiss without a second thought. Troy’s hands drift to his hair and scratch at his scalp and Abed doesn’t think anything has ever felt as good as this.

A few moments later and they’re pulling back for air. Eyes closed, Troy rests his forehead against Abed and they breath.

“I love you.” Abed whispers into the quiet room.

Troy responds smiling. “I know.” 

They whip their heads to look at one another. “Did that give you déjà vu too, or was it just me?” Troy asks, a hint of uncertainty in his tone of voice.

“No, I felt it too.” 

They watch each other for a moment and confused stares turn to shared smiles and then to near hysterical giggles. Abed hasn’t felt this light in years.

Hours later, finds them lying in Troy’s - _their?_ \- bed. “I love you too, you know.” Troy says. 

“I know.” Abed says, and he thinks he’s finally worthy of a Main Character role.

**After.**

Abed never really got intimacy. He didn’t understand how people could get so close with other people, how they could share their bodies, their hearts, the innermost parts of their souls. He never really got love. Not real love, anyway, he understood fictional love perfectly. He’d never been lucky enough to understand real love. 

That is, until Abed wakes to the soft press of lips against his cheek. And then his other cheek. And then his forehead, his chin, his eyelids. The final kiss settles itself carefully on Abed’s lips, and Abed lifts his hands and winds them into Troy’s hair in order to pull him in deeper.

A moment later the pull back for air. “Hi.” Abed whispers into the still room.

Troy breaks into a smile. The ray of sunlight spilling through the crack in the blinds makes his eyes sparkle. “Hi.” 

Troy shuffles down to lie against Abed, and they just stay there, revelling in the quiet and each other.

Abed had never imagined he’d get to be in this position, lying intertwined from head to toe with his best friend. Troy’s head rests upon Abed’s bare chest, his arm flung haphazardly across his waist. Warm skin on warm skin. They had discarded their shirts somewhere before bed the night before. Their socked feet lie jumbled together at the end of the bed.

Troy shifts, nuzzling closer. Abed wants to stay here for the rest of his life.

But eventually he breaks the silence. “Do you remember the time we switched bodies and I said it was the best way I’d ever been woken up in my life?” Troy hums. “I’ve changed my mind. That was the best way I’ve ever been woken up in my life. You should do that all the time.” 

Troy laughs and Abed can feel his breath against his skin. He wants to stay there forever.

The moment is quickly broken, however, when Annie gently knocks on the door and walks in. “Hey, Troy, I can’t find Abed, are you awa-Oh!” She stops in her tracks, a look of shock on her face. “Hi Abed.”

“Hi Annie.” 

“What are you guys doing?” She says in her ‘I don’t know what to think’ voice. 

“We were sleeping.” Abed replies point blankly. 

“Uh huh… is that all? Troy?”

Troy looks at Abed to check if it was alright to say. Abed nods. “We were also kissing and uh, some other stuff?”

“Okay.” Annie says, drawing out the A. “Is it a Dreamatorium type situation or is it different?”

Once again Troy looks up at Abed. Abed can tell this look is different, he wants him to put a label on what they’ve become. “It was different. We’re boyfriends, now.”

Troy smiles, bright and beautiful, and tightens his arm around Abed’s waist. Abed smiles back.

“Aww, you guys! That’s great” She says in her, what Abed calls, sunshine and rainbows voice. “I’m so happy for you.” And with that she leaves and closes the door. 

“How long do you think we have until the rest of the study group knows?” Troy asks, staring at the door. 

“I think she’s already told them.” Troy just laughs.

An hour or so later they’re sitting in the car on their way to school. Annie had graciously offered to sit in the backseat so that Abed could sit up front with Troy while he drove. 

As they’re nearing the study room, Annie pipes up. “I may have texted the rest of the group that you guys are together now. Okay, bye!” She speaks so fast that all her words blend together, and then she rushes ahead. Troy and Abed share an amused look.

When they finally walk into the study room, they’re met with 3 staring faces, one awkward Annie and one ominously empty seat. (Where Pierce went these days, no one knew.) 

“We know why you’re staring.” Abed says as he and Troy walk to their seats. “Yes, me and Troy are dating now. We got together last night.” Britta groans and passes a smirking Jeff a twenty-dollar bill. 

Britta opens her mouth to say something but Abed cuts her off. “Britta, you get ten words maximum. So use them wisely and make them count. Shirley, if you’re homophobic towards either myself or Troy, we won’t hesitate to leave and never talk to you again. Annie, it’s okay, we’re not mad at you for telling everyone.” He pauses. “Ok. Britta, go.”

Britta considers for a moment, counting on her fingers to keep herself right. Then, she speaks. “I’m really happy for you guys?” 

“Good.” He smiles at her. “Shirley?” Troy reaches for Abed’s hand under the table.

Shirley smiles in that motherly way of hers. “You boys have nothing to worry about. I saw this coming for a while, so I made my peace with it.” She says sweetly. “And it turns out that my church is very accepting of homosexuality!” Troy rushes out of his seat to hug her. She smiles at Abed over his shoulder. Abed smiles back.

“Dean-a-ling-ding!” Dean Pelton sings, skipping into the room. His outfit of the day happens to be that of a Pirate. Except, oddly enough, he has little pride flags sticking out of the top of his hat. “I hear congratulations are in order. Tro-“

But before he can continue, Abed cuts in. “Are you supposed to be Captain Jack Sparrow from _Pirates of the Caribbean_?”

“That’s what I was going for, but you know what? My costume guy couldn’t get the rights to a costume that used that name. Disney copyright, and all. So, he just got one in a similar likeness. This,” He does a twirl. “Is Jake Saddleback!” He says the last bit in a sing-songy voice.

“So, what’s the reason for the pirate costume?” Troy asks, sitting down next to Abed and taking his hand.

“Ah, well, today marks the start of Greendale’s first ever pirating class!”

“As in ‘shiver me timbers’, or as in stealing things on the internet?” Annie says. 

“Well, you know that Greendale’s students aren’t the richest. We figured this would just give them a boost.” He winks awkwardly.

“Okay, and what’s with the flags?” Britta scoffs.

“That brings me back to what I was saying before! Congratulations, Troy and Abed on your new relationship!” 

Jeff clears his throat and holds out a hand. The Dean rolls his eyes and reaches into his jacket. He digs around for a moment before pulling out a glittery pink coin purse. He takes out a twenty-dollar bill and slaps it into Jeff’s hand.

“Anyway, I’ll be going now. Apparently, Donna the lunch lady isn’t working today!” And with that, he rushes out of the room.

“I do not understand that man.” Shirley mutters under her breath. 

“Oh, shoot!” Annie says, looking at the clock. “We should leave now, or we’re gonna be late for history.” She stands up and grabs her bag, the rest of the group following suit.

Before they leave the room, Jeff stops them. “I never got to say I’m really happy for you guys. And I’m so proud of you for getting your shit together.” He says that last part staring directly at Abed, and before Abed even knows he’s doing it he’s got his arms wrapped around Jeff’s waist in a hug. He feels Jeff wrap his arms around his back and squeeze.

He hears a couple ‘Awws’ from Shirley and Annie, and then the rest of the group is joining Abed and Jeff in their hug.

It lasts a few moments, and then they all mutually pull away. Jeff ruffles Abed’s hair and then starts to lead the group out of the room. 

Abed goes to follow them but feels a hand catch his wrist. He turns to find Troy smiling at him just as Jeff says, “Seriously, has anyone seen Pierce? He owes me fifty bucks.”

“Troy?”

“I love you.” Troy pulls him in for a kiss, a simple press of lips. Then he pulls back and rests his forehead against Abed’s.

“I love you too.” Abed breathes into the space between their lips.

Abed Nadir never really understood why people hugged each other. But he figures, with Troy by his side, he can finally learn.


End file.
